


Forward, tin soldier!

by V_Evergreen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anger Management, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Misuse of the Force, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:54:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24253180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_Evergreen/pseuds/V_Evergreen
Summary: Thrown back into the darkest days of the Clone Wars, Leia Organa, Princess of a world that no longer exists, must save herself before the darkness consumes her.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 39
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ” - Carrie Fisher

“Come on, Princess, didn’t anybody tell you we won the war?”

Kes Dameron was a good man. Leia knew this and it was the only reason she was trying to keep her face set in friendly lines as he cajoled her. That and his toddler son he had slung over his hip who was apparently shy enough to hide against his father’s shoulder but fascinated enough by her hair to keep glancing at it with wide eyes. 

“The recon report will be complete by the end of the week, but we’ve had reports of holdover cells in the quadrant. Don’t risk it.” 

Her eyes darted to his son, Poe, and Kes sighed, the smile still not completely gone. 

“You’re right, of course. But hey, you want to be the one to go tell the wife? I think she’s gonna start chewing the walls if we don’t get off-planet soon.”

Leia, like everyone else on what used to be the Rebel base, had witnessed the slow fraying of Shara Bey’s temper since the return from Endor. She had been only too happy to sign off on two weeks leave for the lot of them, at least before the rumours had started up. Shara’s anger, at least, was something she could relate to. 

“Come see me at the end of the week, Commander. I hope I have better news.”

Kes was already distracted by his son who had decided to try for an escape attempt. “I’ll hold you to it, Princess.”

She had already turned away so he wouldn't see her grit her teeth as she left. She’d dropped hints at first and then outright started correcting people when they used her former title but even now, a year and a half since the end of the Empire, people still insisted on using it. Princess of the flotsam, of the ever expanding wreckage, perhaps. Fastened in place while everything else drifted further and further away. She took a breath and tried to release it slowly. Simply a long morning, she told herself. 

She tried to focus on her path as she walked down one of the many winding halls of the ziggurat. People tended to move out of her way when she walked through the deceptively convoluted passages and today was no exception. Snippets of conversations flashed past her as she made her way to the control room. 

“-down in the commissary! I _saw_ them-”

“Hey, so a Hutt, a droid and the emperor walk into a cantina-”

“Master Skywalker! He only just arrived!”

Leia ducked into a side passage before they could see her coming. Luke wasn’t meant to arrive until tomorrow. Had something- no. She would have felt it if he was injured, she would know. 

She slipped into a side room before anyone could wonder why she was pressing herself into the wall like Vader himself was on the way.

Ah, a supply closet. An excellent place to have an emotional breakdown.

_No_ , she told herself. _Focus_. _You are not going to have an emotional breakdown._ In with calm, out with anger. In with calm, out with anger. The last time she had seen her brother was two weeks ago when he had left to investigate the claims of a prophetic warrior priest who lived in seclusion less than a parsec away. Even with the distance between them she had felt the echo of his disappointment when the stories hadn’t lived up to his desperate desires. 

She clenched her hands into fists and then slowly relaxed them. Clench, release. Clench, release. 

She knew these reports did him more harm than good but nothing could stop him from checking each one of them. Even Han was beginning to look uncomfortable whenever Luke would leave, determined hope making him impervious to any amount of reason or logic. What hurt more was the sight of that same hope shattered when he came back. Every time he would look at her in that crestfallen way and she would weaken in her resolve. Maybe it would help this time, maybe this time neither of them would get hurt when she gave up again in anger, barely restraining herself from screaming when he told her again to release her anger into the Force. 

Luke was a gifted Jedi but as a student Leia had many faults. She couldn’t blame him, she knew the desire to not be the last one deep in her chest, but every time he convinced her to try just one more time she wanted to break something just a little bit more. Some parts came easily, she could swing a lightsaber just as easily as he and for every hit she had taken she had delivered two in kind. The reaching awareness hadn’t felt like a skill at all. Even as a child on Alderaan she had an awareness of who was around her, what they _felt_ like for a lack of a better word. Not until her father had an old friend of his come by, a Togruta woman who called herself Fulcrum, had she been taught to control it. Luke had been surprised when she told him that, it was perhaps the one area of dealing with the Force that she had more training than him. He had in turn taught her how to move objects with nothing but her mind. Han had walked in on them passing a mug of caf through the air between them, and promptly turned on his heel and left again. 

No, what failed her every time was when her brother would sit down and ask her to join him in mediation. She knew there was more to being a Jedi than swinging a lightsaber and making cryptic comments to appear wiser than she was. She knew that, she did. But every time Luke tried to explain “releasing her emotions into the Force” she wanted to throttle him. She didn’t even want to be a Jedi, she stopped herself from shouting at him, she was doing this so he’d stop looking at her with that hangdog expression. Why should she give up anything at all to this Force she could not see, let alone one of the very few things she had left to remember almost her entire life by? 

Everyone she’d known almost her entire life, gone. Her mother, father, cousins, friends, people she liked, people she didn’t. The cook who always used to give her an extra sweet after dinner and the old man who used to shout at her and her sisters when they were children, playing too close to his fields. Everyone she’d ever known and their place in her life had been reduced to the anger she carried for them. Luke didn’t understand. Only the people from Alderaan, _her_ people, understood and they were the only ones she could stomach to hear her old title from. She had wondered, upon occasion, how many people remembered her planet. Was it so soon just a footnote in the history books that were only just being written?

Every time she failed Luke would try to reason with her. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. She could almost hear the little green frog he had described to her saying it to her brother, too kind and good to take it as anything other than fact. Yes, she had once been afraid and yes, she was angry. But it was her anger. They couldn’t have it. Some days it was the only thing keeping her upright.

This wasn’t working. She was hiding to calm down, not to relive all of the irritations of weeks past. She took her breaths and relaxed her fists. She would go to the briefing and then she would see her brother. She could do this.

She opened the door and strode out of it, not acknowledging the greetings of those she passed in the halls beyond a taciturn nod.

By the time she reached the briefing they were ready to begin. She sat attentively as they outlined the movements of what was left by the empire and the cells of hold out troopers and Imperial officials they were still finding all these months on. She nodded, questioned and agreed in all of the relevant places and was proud by the end of it that not a single one of them had noticed she hadn’t once paid more than her minimum attention. 

Even with her mind wandering however, she knew her tasks were piling up. With new allies to assuage, communiques to reply to, a brother to track down and the general putting out of fires which made up an alarming percentage of her day, even her evenings were dedicated to the now-legal rebellion. Which is why it was completely inexplicable as to how she ended up in the hanger bay.

“Lost, your worship?”

Maybe not completely inexplicable then. 

Han’s face popped over the edge of the ship, welding goggle round his neck and torch in hand. He had that face on again, the one that looked like he was happy to see her though he wasn’t actually smiling. 

“Come on up.”

She thought about excusing herself, she wouldn’t be lying about the amount of work she had to do, but there was something about seeing him standing atop his ship with his hand extended down over the ladder that felt like the invitation was half a challenge. She’d shave her own head before she backed down from one of Han’s challenges. The ladder she climbed to reach the wing was rickety, almost as bad as the support struts of the Falcon itself, but as soon as she was in grabbing distance she took Han’s hand and he hauled her up the rest of the way. She didn’t let go immediately. 

“It’s beautiful.” She breathed as she looked out. 

“She’s not bad, the sub-light thrusters are still performing under capacity but I’ve swapped out the old transistors- hey! Oh.”

His hand stayed on his ribs from where she’d jabbed him with her elbow but he looked out the hanger bay and stayed silent while she drank it in. It was easy to forget where she was when she spent all day in meetings, holo-calls and briefing rooms. Coming out to the hanger with the bay wide open was a nice reminder that the world outside still turned even though she didn’t see it from one day to the next. The sun was only just beginning its descent, light flooding the hanger and making the old X-wings look sharp, giving even the worn shielding of the Falcon a kind of sleekness that was reserved exclusively for immobility. Leia took a deep breath and for the first time all day it came easily. Whether from the sun, the jungle beyond or Han’s hand that was still in hers there was peace to be found here. 

She sat down, feet swinging off the edge and Han joined her, leaning back on his hands. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye but sat close anyway. After a moment of silence he passed her his canteen and she took a sip, not even disappointed that brackish water was all he had to offer. She didn’t feel adrift at times like these with Han. The galaxy and its problems were still there, still at the back of her mind, but it felt very distant as she passed the canteen back to him, her fingers brushing his. He drank from the same place her lips had touched and she closed her eyes, just enjoying the short moment of contentment the day had decided to offer her. 

Which is exactly when a small electrical fire exploded into being behind them. 

Han yelped and scrambled over to beat at it ineffectually until he managed to smother it. 

“Did you forget to-”

“Yep, laugh it up sweetheart.”

She had been trying to suppress a smile but she stopped trying when he looked up. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t distract you next time you’re halfway through repairs.” He grumbled but didn’t say anything as he inspected the damage. 

“What about it, your worship, you got anywhere you need to be?” He asked suddenly.

Leia deliberately didn’t think about the endless list of tasks and people waiting for her. She thought about the sun and how long it had been since she last saw it. 

“I might be able to spare a few minutes.”

“Good. Here, hold this back.” 

He arranged her hands for her, something which she didn’t even have the energy to summon irritation at, removed another plate of the exterior and leaned down to get a better look at the guts of the ship. Her job, she knew, was largely ornamental. She might be able to hold her own in an engine room, but it was a useless task competing with Han over knowledge of the Falcon. She was content to hold back the circuitry for the sensor array if it meant it was easier for him to finish with replacing the old transistors. Besides, she thought as he leaned further down, almost his entire torso in the ship with his legs splayed out behind him, there were some perks to the position. 

As if he’d felt her eyes tracing him he shot her a look. “See something you like?”

“I’ll let you know if I do.” She said sweetly and he grinned as he turned back. 

She sat and she watched in contentment as he worked. Times like now it didn’t seem to matter so much that she was stuck in place while everyone else moved on, got jobs, had babies and forgot. Han, for all his extensive and multiple annoying quirks, was with her, even if he was currently cursing a blue streak under his breath. If she could choose to freeze a moment, this one would be a strong contender. 

Eventually, with the sun far lower and the horizon beginning to darken he brandished the now defunct piece of metal in her face as though expecting her to be impressed. She was. However, there was still the status quo to maintain and she raised an eyebrow as though she had expected nothing less. 

“For your troubles.” He said with a wink, slipping it into her pocket. She rolled her eyes but didn’t give it back. 

“Done?” She asked, taking back her hands when he nodded. They were filthy with oil and she regretting wiping one across her face immediately. They certainly weren’t the hands of a princess. She wondered briefly what her old tutors would say if they could see her now. 

She wondered what a lot of people on Alderaan would say if they could see her now. 

No time for that. Not now, not with Han her being the only one who wasn’t moving on without her. Later. There would be time later. 

Han descended first, down the unsteady ladder which he held still for her while she found her footing. 

“Jump.” He said when she got half way down. She shot him an exasperated look but- oh, what was the harm, there was no one else to see. She jumped the last few rungs and landed with his hands on her waist. She was laughing before she realised both her feet were on the floor. She could feel the breeze rolling in from the door that would have to be shut soon, still warm with the last of the dying light. It tugged gently at her hair, wisps of which she knew had escaped. She must be a mess, she thought. Hair askew, oil on her hands and no doubt streaked across her face, and sweaty from sitting in the sun. She probably looked a fright but she didn’t feel it when Han looked down at her fondly. With no thought at all she bounced up on her toes and kissed him as the sun went down behind them. She hummed in contentment as she broke away, ready to turn and find the commissary and have dinner with him, perhaps try to steal his bread roll when he wasn’t looking.

“Marry me.” He blurted out. 

Leia froze. Suddenly the evening was not so warm, her easy contentment only skin deep. 

“What?” She asked blankly. He didn’t seem to hear as he fumbled for something in his jacket. His hand closed around it and he abruptly dropped to one knee, in true Corellian tradition.

“I’m messing it all up. I had a plan.” He was saying, though Leia could barely hear him over the blood in her ears. Han was meant to understand, he was meant to understand she was no good for it. 

“Han,” Her voice was a whisper, she could barely get it past her throat, “Han, what are you doing?”

He looked up at her and in that look there was everything she had ever hoped a man would look at her with. His hands were shaking. “Leia, I love you. You are without a doubt the most annoying, most infuriating, most _irritating_ woman I have ever met and I want to spend the rest of my life arguing with you.” 

She was stricken. At first there was nothing and then, deep in her chest, ugly and shameful, a singular emotion bubbled. 

_Betrayal_. 

He wasn’t meant to be doing this. Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he see what the rest of the couldn’t: _she was no good for it_. Why did everyone keep asking for things that she didn’t have, not anymore.

He was almost smiling when he opened the box and took one of her hands in his. She couldn’t bring herself to even look at it. 

“What d’you say? Do you think a princess and a guy like me…?”

She tried to focus on her breathing, in with peace, out with anger. In with peace, out with anger. Only it wasn’t anger this time. All this time holding herself together, thinking he understood and here he was proposing to a princess of nothing, of nowhere and no one. She knew it wasn’t rational but there was no rational part of her left to govern. He was supposed to make it better not try and change everything. 

She saw the moment she hesitated too long in his eyes. The dawning horror and the slow realisation. He went to speak and she took a small, involuntary, step back. Her hand fell from his. 

“Han, I-”

The wail of the atmosphere defence system rent the air.

For a moment Leia couldn’t make sense of it, it was as though the rush of blood through her ears was made sharper, piercing. But Han heard it too. She saw his eyes move to the alarm just as she looked out the hanger doors, still wide open. 

In the last rays of the sun she saw them, two TIE fighters and an old T-16. She had no idea where they had come from or how they were here but all she could think of was Kes Dameron’s face when she ordered him to stay so he wouldn’t endanger poor little Poe with all the Imperials still running about the galaxy.

Han was only halfway to standing when they made their run. She saw the first shell hit, the second and third and distantly she saw the projected line of sight. Of course, she thought, they want to bomb the hanger, of course. To go out like this after everything they had been through, frozen and confused, killed by the dregs of the dying empire. 

The fourth shell hit the door to the bay, the useless blast shields wide open. It seemed an eternity but as her eyes met Han’s the concussive force slammed into her, throwing her from her feet and into the ramp of the Falcon. The body of the ship tilted sickeningly above her and Leia _felt_ the rivets in the support strut groan under the stress and give way. It was as though her mind had cracked open right down the middle; she could feel the life of every single person in the base, Luke among them burning brighter, determined. She could feel Han, alive and frantic as he looked for her. She saw him raise himself above the rubble, not thirty feet from her. Finally she felt the stress lines, the fractures, in the structure around them. 

It’s going to come down on us, she thought. It’s going to bury us. Even as she watched she felt the ceiling slip with that new ranging sense in her, connecting her to everyone and everything. Without thinking she raised her hand and looked up. 

“Leia, no!” He screamed but it was too later. 

_Just like the caf, just like the caf, it’s no different from the caf, just as Luke taught you, just move the caf-_

Impossibly, improbably and completely against the laws of gravity the ceiling split and collapsed, leaving one man unharmed in the middle, protected by an invisible force he could not see as the rock fell gently around him.

Her arm dropped, energy spent. 

Nonsensically she thought of the repairs they had just finished. They’d be buried, just like her. 

The hanger wall collapsed and the darkness was complete. 

Leia didn’t think she lost consciousness but she couldn’t be sure. She thought she might have drifted as when she came back to herself it was only then she started to take stock. She could feel the ramp at her back and she was still breathing so there was air. _Focus on that_ , she told herself. It was a small space, somewhat protected by the Falcon overhead. She could move her arms, she could feel her legs. Something was trapping her ankle. 

Her breath was getting shorter. 

In with peace, in with peace. She released a slow breath, trying to calm her hammering heart. Her breathing was the only sound in the darkness and she tried to focus on it, follow the sound of it entering her chest, hold it and then the whisper of it escaping. 

She didn’t know how long she sat there listening to her own breathing but it was long enough that the chill of the surrounding debris began to seep in. She began to sharpen her mind on what came next. She couldn’t dig herself out and while she knew help would come she didn’t know how badly the rest of the base had been hit. Was Luke fighting right now? Was Han?

Han was safe, she reminded herself as the beginnings of panic threatened once again. He’d survived the blast and the rocks had missed him, she was sure of it. She’d saved him, he was probably out there right now trying to get her out. 

She remembered the look on his face as she stepped away. 

No. He was. He wouldn’t leave her there because of that. He was trying to find her. She should try and help them find her. 

She closed her eyes against the darkness though it made no difference and tried to remember what Fulcrum had told her so many years ago. Fulcrum had been teaching her to hide, to fold her power into herself so it became invisible. The opposite must also be true. She took another breath and delved inwards. It was just like when she felt for Luke on the base. She could help them find her, reach out with the Force and guide them. 

She lay there still, until finally an awareness on the edge of her mind made itself known. Distant and far away, it was nebulous but she could tell enough to sense another mind. Someone with the Force on the other side of the barrier. Oddly familiar…but not Luke. Was there someone else on the base Force sensitive enough to perceive her? She felt the mind snag and redirect itself. They had felt her. It came closer, still undeniably familiar, yet changed, not what she had ever seen before-

_No_. 

Her chest was wheezing as she scrabbled with her fingers at the prison she found herself in. No, Luke had promised, he had _promised_ her. 

It was coming closer. She felt the determination, the power getting closer with every moment. 

Luke had promised her he was dead, he had sworn on Tatooine, on his Aunt, Uncle and his lightsaber. She had made him swear on Alderaan. 

Darth Vader was dead. 

Her sanity hinged on the very fact that Vader had died. Redeemed or not it didn’t make a difference to her, she had refused to attend the pyre, the first time she had ever refused her brother anything though she saw the pain in his face. None of it explained how she could feel that presence, that malevolent presence coming closer. It must have been the attack, she thought wildly. The leftover cells that attacked the base, somehow they’d found Vader, brought him back with them.

She was shaking. It didn’t matter how he was here. If he thought he was going to take her again, take anyone else, he was wrong. 

Han was out there. Not again, Vader couldn’t take him again. 

She felt half like an animal trapped under dirt and concrete, just waiting. Her conscious thought began to bleed away until it was only panic, pleading…anger. Whatever she had was coalescing into fury as she felt him grow closer. She was not a helpless princess anymore. If he wanted to take her away again to use as a bargaining chip he’d have to kill her. And he’d have to do it before she killed him first. It didn’t matter how much Luke had believed Vader dead she would make sure, she didn’t care if she had to throttle him herself. 

Something broke overhead, dust and dirt rained down and she distantly registered the new air flowing in, she hadn’t realised how stale and warm her own had been. 

A strong hand closed around her arm and pulled her free. 

Leia committed and she came out swinging. 

“Get back!” She screamed, “Get back, I’ll kill you, I’ll kriffing kill you!”

She was blinded by the light as she was dragged out of her tomb but she didn't need to see. She could feel where he was, blinding and burning in the Force and with no thought she was already throwing herself forward. She surged forward, fist first and once, just once, completely gave into her anger. 

Her hand connected but not with the sharp angles of a duraplastic helmet but with flesh and cartilage that gave way under her assault. 

It was a man. A man who stumbled back, releasing her, as his hands flew to his face. She didn’t care. 

Where was Han?

He should be here, she’d seen him. He’d been knocked back but he should be here. 

Where even was she?

There was sky overhead. Why was there sky? Where was the hanger, the ziggurat, the X-wings lined up and waiting. Even with the attack they should be here. 

“What have you done with him?” She asked hoarsely, looking around in bewilderment. “Where’s Han? Where have you taken him?”

The man looked back up at her. His hair was a dark blond and unkempt. He was tall, dressed drably though practically. With a scar bisecting his eye and covered in dirt and half healed hurts (not to mention his nose which was freely bleeding) he looked as they all had during the worst days of the war. Leia had never seen this man before in her life but when she looked at him she thought she was going to be sick. 

Oh no, she was actually going to be sick. 

She was heaving before he could say anything, already weak. This couldn’t be right. How could any of this be real. The Force was on the edge of her reasoning but she refused to even put words to the sinking feeling in her gut. 

“Anakin, we must go!” Came another voice, just outside her line of sight. 

“I found her!” The man who couldn’t possibly be Anakin Skywalker called back, not taking his eyes off her. “She’s alive.”

Leia looked up at her surroundings. This wasn’t Yavin IV. There was no jungle, no ziggurat, even the air was different. No, she was somewhere else entirely, somewhere that had perhaps once been a village, some sort of rural settlement. Shelled out entirely so only the charred bones of the once-houses still stood. She looked back at where she had been pulled from…the skeletal corpse of a barn, perhaps. A collapsed hanger? Certainly not. 

“Where are we?”

He ignored her. “We have to go. We don’t have much time. Can you walk?”

It was some kind of sick dream. She was still buried and the air was running thin. That was the only possible explanation that a young man, who was holding out his hand to her with no recognition, who felt like Darth Vader but looked like baseline human was talking to her. 

“Where are we?” She said again more forcefully.

“If you won’t come with me, we’ll leave you here, now come on!” His irritation bled through as he motioned with his hand again. He moved towards her and she panicked.

“No!” 

It felt like pushing all of her fear out of her body, and she saw him stumble backwards. He looked at her again, calculating, and Leia tried to focus on getting enough air into her lungs. 

“Master?” 

It was a young Togruta girl accompanied by another man. She was breathing fast, had been running perhaps, and she looked between them in confusion. She was young, Leia thought. Young and proof that Leia was going mad. 

Shakily, Leia got to her feet. She wavered but held firm. The three of them regarded her with varying degrees of wariness and interest. Vader didn’t try to approach her again but didn’t stop the Togruta with the impossible face markings from edging over to him.

"Master, we have to go.” She whispered urgently, “They know we’re here. This place is about to be swarming with clankers.” 

The other man made no move to come closer but she felt his scrutiny. When he spoke his accent was so clipped it almost sounded affected.

“She’s right, Anakin. It seems our friends left us a gift. The field systems north and west of here have been booby trapped. They know we’re here.” The craters in the land, the smoking shells of the village stood in testament to his words. 

“We need to get back to the city.” Vader said firmly. “It’s defensible and with the 501st we can hold out until the transporters get down.” He paused carefully, “There’s no one else here.”

Slowly the three of them turned to her. 

“Are you…coming with us?” The girl with the impossible face markings asked.

“Of course she is.” Vader moved forward and she scrambled back on instinct. 

“Leave me here.” 

“What?” He asked incredulously.

“Leave me here.” She snapped. “Go!”

“We’re not leaving out here after I just dug through half a wall of rubble to get you out-“ Vader began angrily but stopped when the girl tugged him back by his arm. 

Leia was shaking. She felt clammy and afraid and wished desperately she could feel the anger that had fuelled her mere minutes ago. He was so angry. He was going to reach out, hurt her, _kill her_ , and pluck the names of every one she loved out of her head so he could do the same to them. 

The other man stepped in front of him. He held his hands loosely in front of him, placatingly, but she wasn’t fooled. He had the lean and worn look of a man who’d stayed at war too long. Han had looked like that by the end. Luke still did sometimes. 

“What’s your name?”

She stared at him. Everything felt like echoes here- no that wasn’t right. It felt like she was trying to recognise people by sight when she’d only ever seen their shadows before.

“Obi-wan, we don’t have time for this!” Anakin burst out behind him. 

_Obi-wan_. 

Was this really the man Luke had called Old Ben? She’d seen him die an old man. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t. 

He waited for her to shake herself out of her thoughts. He didn’t show any sign he had heard Anakin. 

“Leia.” She said eventually. She scrambled for a last name. This man had known her father, her true father, so the House of Organa could offer her no protection. She would rather bury herself again than borrow Luke’s name with that beast standing so close. The memory of Han on one knee in front of her twisted in her gut and she couldn’t stammer out another lie. “Just Leia.” 

“Leia, will you come with us?” He sounded so kind Leia almost wanted to. It was a strange juxtaposition. With that ridiculously cultured voice he sounded better suited to academies and offices rather than in the smoking ruin of a battle, wearing scuffed armour and mud splattered boots. “It’s not safe here.”

It was the barest of suggestions, the gentlest of nudges. She was being pulled in the current of the Force. She was meant to go. She could have resisted if she really wanted to but…her father had trusted this man. That had to be enough. 

She gave the barest of nods. 

Kenobi smiled. “Ahsoka, come help our friend here.” 

It was neatly done, she thought, as Ahsoka moved forward and Kenobi blocked her view of Vader. It seemed Kenobi had all the subtly of a senator on a good day as he bent his head to Vader and began planning their route. 

“Are you okay?” The girl, no- Ahsoka, asked from her side. Kenobi and Vader set out and Leia struggled to get her feet to move in the right direction. Perhaps there was more than gentle manoeuvring on Kenobi’s part when he set Ahsoka beside her, she wasn’t as steady as she wished to be. 

Ahsoka was looking at her waiting for an answer. Her montrals were barely taller than Leia, she must be so young. 

“I’m fine.” Leia answered eventually. 

Ahsoka smiled at her and rubbed absentmindedly at a streak of dried mud on her cheek. Leia tried not to stare at her facial markings. The last time she had seen them she was sat opposite Fulcrum pretending that she was meditating too. “I’m glad he found you. We didn’t know what was happening when Skyguy took off like that.” 

There were so many things she wanted to ask and so many things that she didn’t know if it was wise to reveal she didn’t know. She opened her mouth to ask something, anything at all, but was interrupted by a dull boom over the horizon. 

“Another of the mines.” Kenobi said after a moment. “Come, we must hurry.”

There was no time for talking after that. Leia was slowing them down she knew, but Kenobi and Ahsoka managed between them to hurry her along until the skyline changed. On the horizon grew a city, a front line. She could see the defences as she stumbled towards them, manned by troops that called out and let them past when they were close enough to be identified. 

It was better off than where they had been she could see, but even the city bore the scrapes of ongoing conflict. Whether it was abandoned or the inhabitants were in hiding she could not tell but troops in identical armour thronged on the streets. 

Vader was claimed immediately by one of them and led off while another approached Kenobi. 

“Sir, we’ve had communication from the _Negotiator_.”

“Right.” Kenobi said with a weary hand rubbing his brow. “Thank you, captain. Ahsoka, see our new friend is put somewhere comfortable, or what passes for comfortable around here and join me in the command tent. Bring Anakin if you see him.” And he was gone. 

Leia watched him disappear into the throngs of movement. 

“Come on. There should be a Med-centre round here somewhere.”

“I don’t need a-” Leia began as one of her legs gave out and Ahsoka grabbed her arm to stop her from falling. She didn’t let go as she began to herd Leia forwards, into a nondescript tent, pitched in the middle of the street. Armoured soldiers came and went, some being dragged in just like her. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw their faces, or rather face. 

She’d seen them before of course, everyone who had grown up in the shadow of the empire had. Clone troopers, Palpatine’s personal guards, his attack dogs who stood silently behind him while he pontificated to the galaxy.

It was too much. She wanted it to be a bad dream. She wanted to wake up to Han holding her in place like he did when she had one of her nightmares, already talking to her by the time her mind broke through the heavy fug of terror. Maybe if she slept, she’d wake up back in place. 

She barely noticed Ahsoka sit her down heavily on one of the functional canvas cots. She saw Ahsoka step aside to explain to one of them, perhaps a medic, who she was, or what she was…Leia didn’t care. 

It was too much. She closed her eyes against the world and told herself when she woke up Han would be there, Luke would be there, she didn’t care if Admiral Ackbar would be there. Just someone.

She was unconscious before she could lift her feet off the ground. 

***

Leia woke on her side, something digging painfully into her ribs. She stayed immobile and tried to keep her breathing steady as she heard the small sounds of an occupied Med-Centre. Shuffling, the hiss of machinery. Voices.

“Nothing we can do for you here, sir. You’ll have to wait until you can get back to the temple.”

“Yeah, I figured. It’s fine for now, it was due a tune up anyway.”

She tensed at the sound of the voice. So much for going to sleep and waking up back where she was. The canvas of the cot was rough as she pressed her face against it, trying to calm her wild heart and frantic mind. 

When she heard the receding footsteps she slowly opened her eyes. It was truly night now, with no light coming through the canvas. She couldn’t have been out much more than an hour. Carefully she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the cot. Her clothes were filthy. When she thought she had control of herself she rifled through her pockets to try and find whatever had been pressed into her side. She drew out the transistor Han slipped in there earlier. 

Her breathing, so carefully even, was coming in gasps now. Her fingers closed around the old piece of metal like a life line. 

Her eyes were squeezed shut as she wheezed. This couldn’t be real. She wanted to reach out with her mind and feel Luke’s reassuring presence. He’d know what to do, not her. She never knew. Before she could a hand fell on her shoulder. 

“Miss, are you alright?”

“I’m- I’m fine…” She managed to grind out.

“Kix.” The trooper supplied. “The commander said they found you out there in the middle of no man's land. She said you weren't injured.” 

She didn’t have to be a diplomat to hear the carefully hidden doubt in his tone. Slowly, she tried to stand, the clone’s hands hovering. She resisted the urge to bat them away.

“I’m fine.” She said again forcefully, as if she could will it into being true. “Where are we?” 

“The Shi’so system.” He answered before elaborating upon her blank look. “The edge of Separatist space?” 

She nodded, “Of course.” What kind of backwater was she in? She’d never even been to this sector before. This was about as far from Yavin IV as it was possible to get. She wanted to know everything but the thought of asking without giving away her own ignorance made her pause. “What happened here?”

Kix seemed to accept she wasn’t going to faint away and moved back. “We had news of a Separatist holdout but they cleared out before we got here. Left a few nasty traps behind which is what got you.” He shot her a look but she had had many years of keeping her face politely blank and he carried on. “They’ll be there now looking for anyone left behind. We’re holding this position until morning when the troop transports can make it down to the surface.” 

What if she went back to where he as talking about? Crossed the front line, walked though the night and climbed right back into the hole she as dug out from. It was a pretty dream. A comforting one, but she was self aware enough to know if what her said was true, and there was an army out there, she would have a snowball’s chance on Tatooine. 

“We should get you to the General.” Kix said with an assessing eye, “He’ll know what to do with you.” 

She opened her mouth to ask where they would be, but the sound of a gasping coughing fit across the room broke her concentration. “Where-”

“Command centre!” He called over his shoulder already moving to the coughing clone. 

She hesitate before slipping out of the tent. She tried to take stock of herself. She’d seen the command centre on her way in, she could remember it no matter how out of sorts she had been. She tried to retrace her steps, though her memory was less than reliable. In the end she just followed the thick cables lining the street, powering the temporary strip lights placed along the side of the road. She didn’t look up to where two luminous moons hung in the sky. Yavin IV had no moon. 

The cables brought her to what she assumed was the temporary command centre though it contained nothing more than a powered down holo-table and a few clones milling in and out. She was about to swallow down her distaste and pull one aside when she head the faint sound of a laugh on the night breeze. It was so out of place in the abandoned city she paused. 

She crept towards it, sticking to the shadows as the voices grew stronger. There was a general hum of identical voices, all gathered together, but even as she moved forward on silent feet another jarring noise broke the din; the sound of two lightsabers clashing against each other.

Making sure she could’t be seen, Leia rounded the corner. It seemed she had chanced upon a sort of common, or what had been a common at one point. It had been repurposed by clone troopers sitting on upended trees and rubble, eating ration packs and talking among themselves. 

In the centre, face illuminated by her two lightsabers, she saw Ahsoka’s frustrated face from where she was kneeling over a pile of kindling on the ground. 

“Come on, Snips, before we die of exposure!” 

Leia didn’t flinch at the sound of Vader’s voice but neither did she move forward. He was sat on a hunk of rubble watching Ahsoka struggle. 

“If it’s so easy, master, why don't _you_ do it?”

Vader held out his hand, a prosthesis, that even from a distance she could see was badly mangled. She had seen Luke do enough repairs on his own to recognise it. 

“I’m teaching you a valuable survival skill, padawan.” Leia could hear the smile in his voice. “After all, we cannot rely on the Force for all things.” He said in a clear imitation of a Conruscanti accent. 

Ahsoka growled but tried again. She ran her two lightsabers against each other, face furrowed in concentration. 

“Come on, you’ve got it.”

She tried again before in frustration hitting them both together in a violent shower of sparks. She cheered when a spark fell and caught on the pile of twigs, a thin line of smoke streaming upwards. Anakin clapped her on the shoulder with a grin. 

“For Force’s sake, Anakin! You’re supposed be teaching her, not encouraging her!” 

Kenobi hurried over but was soundly ignored. Ahsoka didn’t look up from where she was coaxing the flames until she had a sound enough fire crackling happily at their feet. She rocked back on her heels and looked up. Leia saw the moment she was noticed. Ahsoka waved her over.

“My padawan, my teachings.” Vader said easily. “Come on, relax. The watchers are set, the transport will be here by morning, there’s nothing more we can do. Relax, Obi-wan.”

Ahsoka waved her over more insistently. Leia hesitated. 

“Leia!” She called over and Kenobi and Anakin turned to look at her too. She swallowed her instinctual fear at Vader’s face, the shadows playing off his profile from the fire. Fear would achieve nothing. 

She made her way over, picking past the troopers until she was at the fire side. After a moment of hesitation she sat, on an upended tree, as far from them as possible. She cast her eyes on the fire and tried to breathe evenly. 

“How’re you feeling?” Ahoksa asked. 

“Fine.” She said shortly. “Thank you.” She added after a moment of pause. 

Across the fire she could hear Vader and Kenobi bickering like children. 

“-honestly, master, _yes_ I went to see Kix, stop fussing-”

“If you would simply do as you were _supposed_ -”

“I had my nose set and everything! What more do you want?”

“You couldn’t spare a moment to clean the blood off your face, I suppose?”

Ahsoka leaned closer to her. “They’re always like this.” She said. “They do like each other underneath it all, I promise.”

Leia didn’t have the words to respond and so chanced a glance upwards. Vader did have dried blood on his face, from where she’d hit him Leia guessed, and Kenobi looked a moment away from licking his thumb and trying to rub it off Vader’s face himself. 

It was almost playful. In the firelight the man who sat across from her didn’t look like Vader. He barely even felt like him but somehow seeing him smile and joke was worse. He looked like any young man, managing to carve out a lighthearted moment. And yet the truth remained. Leia could still hear that mechanical breath in her ear as she watched her world end in one heart stopping instant. 

She shook herself from it. There was a time and a place for grief and it was certainly not now. 

“I was told to come find you.” She said briskly, “About where I am supposed to go next.”

The bickering stopped. “Well, you can’t stay here.” Said Ahsoka. “The whole planet’s been evacuated.”

“Not that there was much here to begin with.” She heard from across the fire. 

“You’ll have to come with us afraid.” Kenobi said. “There’s nothing left here, especially now the Separatists are aware of our location. This place will be razed to the ground after we leave.”

Leia fought for control of her face. “I can’t go with you.” 

Vader snorted and leaned forward. She clenched her hands. “Didn’t you hear him? There’s going to be nothing left. You’re lucky I found you when I did. You stay here and you won’t see out the week.”

Her nails bit into her palm. “I can’t go with you. I need to stay here.” The thought of leaving felt like an adrenaline shot in her chest. She had no idea how she was meant to find her way back, or if any of this was even real, but the thought of leaving the last place she had seen Han was unbearable.

“We’re heading back to Coruscant.” Kenobi continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “From there you’ll be able to find transport to any planet within Republic space.” He paused, “Although perhaps we should present you to the council before you move on.” 

“Why?” Said Ahsoka, sitting forward, intrigued.

Kenobi and Vader shared a glance and Leia tried to contain herself. “I’m not going to any Jedi council.” 

“The only reason I found her was I could feel her in the Force.” Anakin told Ahsoka, across the fire. 

Leia’s hands were shaking now. The flames flared. 

“Lots of people are Force sensitive.” Said Ahsoka, confused. 

“But those people aren’t quite as adept at using it.” Said Kenobi, carefully. He looked uneasy across the fire. “Nor quite so strong in it.”

Ahsoka looked at Leia with wide eyes. “You know how to use the Force?” She asked in astonishment. 

Leia shook her head jerkily. 

“No. I don’t. I don’t know anything about it.”

It sounded false to even her own ears. In truth she didn’t even like thinking about it. Luke would’ve taught her in a heartbeat, she knew. But how could she? What good could possibly come from this invasive power in her mind giving action to everything she thought. The universe had been saved the very day that Kenobi had taught Luke how to harness the Force and not Leia. If Luke, bright and kind Luke who didn’t have a single harmful intention in his body, was tempted by the Emperor, no matter how momentarily, she would’ve crumbled. Give in to her hate, indeed. 

“You’re lying.” Said Vader. 

The flames crackled as she held herself still. 

Kenobi’s voice was gentler. “They’ll only want to ask you some questions. You burn brightly, Leia. They’ll want to know where you received your training.”

“I haven’t been trained.” She said automatically. 

“Liar.” Said Vader again. 

It was too much. She had sprung to her feet before she had made the conscious choice. She wanted to leap at him. She wanted to hurt him, she reach across the fire and drag him through it. Her hands shook. The flames grew higher. Vader didn’t look away. 

“You’re coming with us. There’s nothing here for left for you. Who were you looking for earlier? Han, was it? There was no one else alive when we reached you. He’s dead.”

“Anakin!”

“Master!”

Leia felt numb hearing that name from his lips. All of her anger, frozen in fear. “Don’t say his name.” She felt as though her face had become a mask, porcelain that would crack and shatter. 

Vader ignored the shocked rebukes of his companions. “She’s got to know. She’s coming with us, whoever she’s looking for —this Han person, he’s dead and she’ll die too, if she stays.”

“Don’t say his name!” She said though clenched teeth, more strongly this time. 

She couldn’t see past the growing rage inside her. All she could think about was Han. Han’s face as he was lowered into the carbonite chamber. Han being dragged back from being tortured at Vader’s command, his screams as she listened, unable to help. Han wasn’t a man who should ever have screamed. She’d heard him scream her name just before-

Anakin stood up and loomed across the fire. Even without the armour he was imposing but the fear was draining away, leaving only the urge to hurt him, make him feel her pain…the anger felt good. It felt righteous. 

“Don’t say his name? Han! He’s not coming back so you’re coming with us!”

It happened in an instant. The flames leapt between them and Leia screamed in rage. She let it run through her, released it entirely. The lightsaber clipped to Anakin’s belt flew into her waiting hand and she had activated it without thought. She was going to kill him, kill him before he could kill her family, before he could reach anyone she ever loved again. 

In an instant three lightsabers ignited around her. Kenobi was in front of Vader, his stance protective. Ahsoka’s two matching lightsabers were a light on the edge of her vision. 

“Put it down.” 

Kenobi was steady as he looked at her, Vader’s face nothing more than a shocked expression behind him. 

She didn’t want to put it down. She wanted to run him though, maybe that would finally bring her peace. She could kill the man who killed her father and perhaps she wouldn't be so incandescently furious all the time. 

Ahsoka wavered in her peripheral vision and Leia wondered if she could feel it, the hate emanating from her. 

She didn’t want to calm down, she didn’t want to think. Her eyes darted around her, surely there must be some way to…

She saw the lightsaber in her hand and she sagged. It was Luke’s lightsaber, that was all she had known it as. Not the green one he used now, but the original that he had been told had belonged to her father. The thought of Luke drained her energy until she could barely hold herself in check. She wanted her brother. He should be the one here, not her.

The lightsaber deactivated and, with no conscious thought from her, rolled from her hand. It landed at her feet, where it was immediately kicked away by Ahsoka’s booted foot. 

Kenobi straightened. Behind him Vader looked at her with a tangle of expressions she didn’t have the energy to decipher. There was shock, anger and something worse. Something that she could only term as interest. 

“I think,” Said Kenobi slowly, as Ahsoka finally removed her lightsabers, “that the visit to the council may no longer be optional.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn did not break suddenly so much as filter weakly through canvas. From her forgotten corner in the Med-centre once more, Leia laid motionless as the base first stirred around her. She had slept poorly, well aware that sets of identical eyes followed her every movement though she never caught any of them looking directly. It was to be expected, she supposed, after her actions the previous night and she was not so fool as to believe that they weren’t under orders to report her every expression to General Kenobi. 

She barely even remembered him leading her to the Med-centre, still shaking from the anger coursing through her. 

She pushed the thought of the previous night away. She had no desire to relive it and even less desire to stay motionless any longer. Quietly, she swung her legs from under the thin blanket and made short work of folding it and making her bed until it hardly looked as though anyone had been there at all. On silent feet, she made quick work in the ‘fresher, scrubbing at her face and brushing her clothes clean as best she could. 

Outside the Med-centre it was silent, only the morning watchmen at their posts, and a smattering of bleary troopers heating their rations. None of them acknowledged her as she made her way past, though she felt their gaze as though it was a physical weight. She did not know where she was going until she came to where they had had the fire the evening before. It was nothing more than ash and ember now, though it was blessedly empty. She sat down and tried to breathe clearly. Focus on the smoke, focus on the ash. Do not remember the night before, do not remember. Do not remember. 

It was a losing battle. 

A breeze picked up. It tugged at the wisps of hair escaping her braids and she released a stale breathe into the air. Her concentration broken, she looked around. It wasn’t quite proper, she knew, but no one was obviously observing her. It made her feel better to have something to do with her hands. It was a mindless task, pulling the pins from her hair and combing her fingers through it as best she could. She had gone through this actions morning and night almost every day of her life and her mind was blissfully blank as she began to plait a long rope of hair over her shoulder before piling it back up on her head. 

Han used to watch with unabashed curiosity when they first started sharing quarters-

She pushed the memory away. She had barely slid the last pin in place when she saw Ahsoka watching her from a distance with barely concealed fascination. She watched as the girl schooled her face into something more neutral before beckoning her over. Leia rose from her perch, flexing her fingers, still stiff in the chill of morning. The routine of working life back into her limbs was still familiar years on, though the memory of Hoth could hardly be compared to where she was now. 

Ahsoka was composed when Leia finally reached her. “General Kenobi and General Skywalker want to see you at Ops. They want to send you up on the next troop transport.” 

Leia nodded and fell into step beside Ahsoka. She looked around the base, activity now in full swing, as the clones effectively dismantled their equipment and made ready to move out. She didn’t need to look to feel Ahsoka’s gaze on the side of her face, though when she did the girl’s eyes flitted away and she looked back at the path determinedly. After a pause they flickered back to Leia. Against all odds, Leia felt a smile twitch at the corner of her mouth. There was something childlike about Ahsoka’s curiosity that reminded her of Luke. She would have questioned the decision to send Ahsoka to fetch her, Ahsoka who was still half a child herself, but she remembered all too well the night before. Ahsoka’s lightsabers had ignited only a fraction after Kenobi’s and she had been still and sure, every inch a commander. It made the smile die on her lips. Even come the worst days in the rebellion they had never stooped to child soldiers. 

Leia recognised the command tent from the day before, though it looked different in the midst of the flurry of activity. Clones filtered in and out, and Vader and Kenobi were bent towards the holo-table examining the projection of a _Venator_ -class star destroyer. Kenobi murmured something, enlarging a portion of the hologram before Ahsoka cleared her throat at the entrance and he looked up. 

“Ah, you’re here. I hope last night wasn’t too uncomfortable?”

Leia wasn’t artless enough to believe the easy tone and polite smile. Kenobi had been the one to disarm her and lead her away the night before and he had looked just as steady then as he did now. 

But Leia had learned her manners at her mother’s knee. 

“Not at all.” She said with what wasn’t a smile but close enough to a polite approximation. “I appreciate the accommodation.”

There was an uneasy silence in which Kenobi turned to Vader as if to include him in the conversation and Vader refused to look away from the projection. Another moment passed and Kenobi nudged him none too subtly with his elbow and Vader huffed. 

“Fine.” He said and looked to Leia. He stepped round the table and Leia fought the urge to step back. Beside her Ahsoka tensed almost imperceptibly. “I owe you an apology.” 

For a wild moment Leia didn’t understand his words in the order he had put them. An apology was so far down on the list of things she was expecting that for a single moment she was too shocked to be afraid of him. “You do?” She asked blankly. 

Vader nodded and if he were anyone else she would have said he looked uncomfortable. “I spoke out of turn last night. It was not my intention to distress you further and I regret my choice of such harsh words. I was insensitive and there is every possibility that _anyone-”_ he said deliberately as though she was liable to attack him if he said Han’s name again “-could have escaped the planet during the evacuation.” 

It was an elegant apology which sounded as though it had been recited from memory. From the glance Vader shot Kenobi she had no doubt as to the author. 

Leia took a deep breathe and held it. She knew what she must do though it burned deep in her chest. Here, she had nothing. No allies, no protection and no way of getting home. She looked at Vader, young, breathing and watching her apprehensively and forced herself not to think of anything but what he was now. Compromise was necessary sometimes, no matter the cost. She tried not to think of the feel of him watching over her shoulder as her entire world collapsed. 

“I apologise also.” She kept herself forcibly in the present as she measured each word before offering it. “I should not have reacted as I did. I hope you can forgive me, Master Jedi.” 

Leia looked at the man who had haunted her very darkest memories and in a shining moment of accord, could have laughed at this ridiculous pantomime. Neither of them were sorry. He still believed he was right and she still felt the phantom weight of his lightsaber in her palm. Her fingers twitched. 

“Anakin.” He said eventually. 

Leia nodded and the atmosphere relaxed. 

He turned back to the projection, Ahsoka now by his side and was joined by a clone trooper commander, as Leia fought herself for control. She had been to a thousand briefings just like this one. This would be no different. She could not, _must_ not dwell. If she looked back now she was lost, if she started screaming now she would never stop. She felt as though the phantom eyes of her people, thousands upon thousands, were looking at her, their silent judgement a condemnation as she apologised to the man who had watched them burn. 

“Leia?” 

Kenobi broke through her paralysis. She had missed what he had been saying and that was enough to make her move close, focus and sharpen. She nodded and Kenobi continued. 

“The _Negotiator_ is in orbit above but the window is small and closing rapidly. We have reports of Separatist backup inbound-”

“Probably alerted by the traps.” Vader added. 

“-so time is of the essence.” Kenobi said. His hand had come up to his temple and in the wavering blue light of the projector he looked weary. “The _Negotiator_ has already sustained heavy battle damage from the inner Shi’so system. Standing our ground so close to Separatist space would be…unwise.”

Leia looked back at the holo-projection that Kenobi had been focusing on when she arrived. Even to her largely untrained eye it looked distressing, she thought, and that was coming from someone who regularly and willingly trusted in the piecemeal repairs aboard the Falcon. 

Even Skywalker looked troubled. “Rex, how long before we can have all the men ready to go?”

The clone trooper, Rex, answered promptly. “The last medical transport is scheduled to leave in twenty minutes. We’ve had two transports already, if we push the men we could be fully evacuated by mid-morning.” 

Kenobi and Vader shared a look and once more Leia saw wordless communication pass between them. 

“Prioritise the troops, Captain. We may have to leave some of the equipment behind.”

Rex snapped to attention before leaving the command centre. Kenobi turned to Leia. 

“You’ll be joining Ahsoka and I on the next troop carrier. We need to get off planet as soon as possible. Follow Ahsoka, she’ll show you where to go. I’ll join you there shortly.”

This appeared to be news as much to Ahsoka as to herself.

“But, master!” Ashoka began looking at Vader. “I can help!”

Hearing Vader gentle his voice to speak to his student was unsettling in the extreme. “I’ll be fine, Ahsoka. We’ll get the men up as quickly as possible but we’re going to need someone calling the shots up there.” 

He smiled and Ahsoka seemed to put aside her unease and did not question him further. It was a good thing too, Leia thought. The girl seemed kind, and Leia was sure it would only make things awkward if she realised she was a glorified jailer. 

No matter the circumstances Leia was glad to follow her from the command centre. The dismantlement was bustling when they began their way through the camp. Everywhere Leia looked clones were disassembling, organising and carrying. There was no chaos, just cool efficiency as their entire base was packed away.

Her eyes wandered, picking out the individual details on each trooper, trying to orientate herself. They had come in from the east yesterday…she could barely remember stumbling into the camp but she couldn’t look away from where they had arrived. Beyond the shelled out bones of the city was the last place she had seen Han. Was he still looking for her? Was Luke? She wanted to believe they were, the alternative could not be borne. At the thought of going back out there she felt a twinge, a pull away. She decidedly did not think about Luke telling her to listen for the Force’s guidance.

She only realised she had come to a stop when Ahsoka began to propel her forward. She went willingly. 

“You know,” Ahsoka began tentatively, “there really were hundreds of evacuation transports out of the city. I’m sure if you got separated your friend could have made it off-planet.”

Apparently her apology had melted the rest of Ahsoka’s reserve and Leia tried to dredge up a smile for her. It was almost comical the thought of Han leaving her behind in an evacuation. Unwittingly, she thought of Echo Base. That had been the very definition of chaos, with the Empire and permafrost both determined to fall upon them but he had turned back when he learned she hadn’t evacuated with the rest of the personnel. Han was, without a doubt, the most aggravating man she knew.

He had also come back for her. 

He had made her give the evacuation code signal and dragged her away from the monitor, doing what she hadn’t been able to. As long as she lived she would never be able to forget that when the tunnel collapsed around them he had shielded her with his own body, his arms going over her head rather than his own. 

“I’m sure he did.” Leia said, and if she sounded unconvinced Ahsoka was good enough to let it slide. 

They continued on to the edge of the camp where an empty troop carrier was just beginning its decent. They packed in, close to the corner, as another regiment of the 501st clambered aboard. At the last moment Kenobi appeared, climbing in mere minutes before take off. There was no room for movement or conversation and Leia was relieved to see the star destroyer come into view through the port hole before claustrophobia could make itself known. As they docked and the clones began to disembark Leia barely had time to take a breath before Kenobi was off, Ahsoka close on his heels. 

Was she supposed to follow?

Kenobi paused and she saw the same question occur to him before he waved her along. Not entirely trusted yet it would seem, she was to stay close all the better to keep an eye on. 

She followed them both to the bridge and stood there, affixed. Kenobi and Ahsoka separated and Leia faltered before following Ahsoka. Across the room Kenobi was asking for a damage report, and going from the lowered undertones of his subordinates the outlook was not favourable. 

One of the clones passed Ahsoka a pad which she frowned at, worrying her lip distractedly. Leia looked over her shoulder. She might not be intricately versed in the politics and alliances in the system they had found themselves in but she had not risen through the ranks by birthright alone. The pad showed what she could only assume to be the Separatist ships, inbound and closing fast. 

Ahsoka seemed to come to a conclusion. “It’s a reconnaissance unit. See that? There’s only six ships at staggered intervals. Even with battle damage we can take them.” She sounded confident but Leia was well versed in the false bravado of commanders. 

“Ahsoka?” Called Kenobi from across the bridge.

“It’s a-”

“It’s the advance guard.” Said Leia. Ahsoka’s head whipped round and Leia pulled the pad from her slack fingers. With a flick of her hand she had the images projected in front of them, revolving slowly. “That’s an Executor-class Star Dreadnought.” At least she hoped it was, they had long been obsolete when she had been forced to learn all of the classes of ship within the Rebel fleet. “It’s a warship, heavy fire power, heavy artillery and near impenetrable. Six ships is enough to blow a hole straight through us.” She handed the pad back to Ahsoka who took it slowly.

“It doesn’t make any sense, why are they staggered?” Asked Ahsoka, her eyes darting between each of the projected ships. “Why not try and overwhelm us?”

Leia glanced at Kenobi but he made no move to step in. “Communication.” She said eventually. “The communication arrays on a Dreadnought can’t reach more than half a parsec. Stagger the vanguard and bounce and amplify the signal all the way back to command.”

Ahsoka was looking at her once more with undisguised curiosity. “She’s quite right.” Said Kenobi. There was no accusation in his tone, nothing to even suggest he had any interest in how she came by this knowledge but something prickled at the back of her neck. She had the terrible feeling that she had given away more than she intended without even realising it. 

“That’s the last transport, sir!” `Said the clone at the helm. 

Kenobi nodded. “Engage the hyperdrive, for however long we can. We’re going to need the head start.”

At his signal there was a hum that seemed to originate from the guts of the ship, thrumming through the dura-steel walls until Leia felt that familiar lurch as the view screen blurred. The feeling of safety, of untouchability, swelled around her jarring only with the tense set of Kenobi’s shoulders. She didn’t have time to think it though before the hum gave way to a terrible grinding and a sudden full stop. The stillness felt dangerous, the shadow of a malevolent presence still growing closer. 

The clone cleared his throat sheepishly. “That would be however long we can, General.”

Kenobi sighed as though he had expected nothing less and unclipped his comlink from his belt. “Anakin, we’re in need of your assistance on the bridge.”

The door open and Vader strode in, the clone commander from the planet half a step behind. “No need to call, old man. What’s going on, why aren’t we putting parsecs between us and the Seps?”

“Ship’s broken.” Ahsoka piped in. 

“Gonna need a little more information that, Snips. Obi-wan?”

Even standing ram-rod straight Kenobi managed to project tangible weariness. “She’s not wrong.” He said, “We took heavier damage than expected in the inner system and whatever it was managed to take the hyperdrive offline. I thought it might be able to hold out long enough to get us closer to Republican space but-”

A jarring impact rocked the ship. 

“-apparently not.” He finished, his white knuckle grip on the viewing station the only sign he had noticed the attack.

Leia righted herself and looked out the view screen. 

“Okay, we’ve got this. Ahsoka, get to the forward turret, try and buy us as much time as you can. Obi-wan, you stay on the bridge and coordinate the response and I’ll get down to the hyperdrive. I’ll patch as much as I can and- what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Leia turned away from the viewer and the approaching ships. Kenobi and Ahsoka shared a doubtful glance before Ahsoka opened her mouth and pointed. ‘Uh, Master?”

“What?” Vader asked, before following her gesture. He held his prosthetic hand up. “I’ll be fine.” With a closer look, Leia wasn’t sure he’d be able move it, let alone make potentially delicate repairs with an attack force bearing down upon them. 

With a concerted frown Vader held his hand up. The index finger twitched. “Aha! There you see? I’ll be fine.”

“ _Anakin_.”

“Fine, I’ll take Snips. You up for being a glorified maintenance droid?”

Kenobi pinched the bridge of his nose before throwing his arm out to steady himself as another impact sent them staggering. “We need someone on the turret, Anakin.”

Vader turned to look at her, “Well, why can’t she-”

“I’ll go to the engines with you.” Leia said. The words hung in the air and she wished she could stuff them back inside but she knew they would end up in the same place. Without the hyperdrive the ship was a defenceless bauble and while she’d been a fair gunner upon the Falcon when she had no other choice, she knew that Kenobi would as soon as let her near the turret as he would give her his own lightsaber. 

Vader looked at her doubtfully. “Can you even-”

“Go!” She snapped at him. “We don’t have time.”

Ahsoka was already moving and Kenobi merely nodded. 

Vader didn’t pause to look at her as he strode towards the door. 

She tried to control her breathing as she following him, running along corridors, down ladders. He was quick but the ship was taking more and more hits, forcing them to slow down as the corridors moved from under them.   
  
She could do this. She _could_. She had no choice.

In with peace, keep breathing, in with peace-

“In here.” Vader said sharply. 

He keyed in his authorisation code and the door slid open before jarring. She slipped in through the gap and looked around her. Even in its state of disrepair the engine room was impressive. Almost cavernous in size, and gleaming in all the places it wasn’t actively leaking coolant, fuel or some other worrying substance. Leia tried not to think about the grand sum of her experience. A walk through of the _Tantive_ models and various repairs on the Falcon, but always with Han nearby in case she almost killed them all. 

“This way.” Vader said before disappearing off to her left. She followed him, ducking under venting pipes. Overhead, Leia could hear the frenzied tread of overworked engineering staff on metal grating. 

“Here.” He said, coming to a stop. 

The hyperdrive was a mess of warning lights and system failures. Vader barely took a moment to survey it before he was ripping out wires and prising open casings as best he could. She steeled herself and stepped in beside him before he could ask. Shoulder to shoulder and she could feel her skin hum, something deep and afraid threatening to come bursting out. Her hands were shaking when she uncoupled the reactor links, and she hoped vaguely that he would think it was simply the adrenaline from being attacked. She tried not to look at him.

He was competent, she realised in some distant part of her mind that was above the animal fear in her body. When he couldn’t get by himself his commands were clipped and precise, though when he reached forward at the same time as her it was all she could do to keep breathing. She doubted he noticed, his mind was obviously elsewhere. At every hit his eyes would flicker overhead, where, stories above, Kenobi and Ahsoka did their best to hold them off. 

Her job was simple, and she was his hands while the ship took and traded blows with the approaching separatists. She tried to focus herself, hold herself together. The memory of the last time she sat helping with repairs threatened on the edge of her memories. If she let her mind wander she would almost be able to feel Han rearranging her hands for her, see him smiling in the last light of the dying day-

Not the time. Press it down.

Eventually Vader leaned back. He surveyed the patchwork repairs and nudged her arm over. She snatched it back as if scalded.“You need to bypass- no, not that the one next to it- the compressor. Just unwire it and-”

Leia followed where he was pointed and rerouted the electrical grid around it and pulled free the now defunct piece of scrap metal. 

He looked at her in mild surprise before a grin broke out. She wanted to flinch back from that as well. The smile, if nothing else, was familiar. 

He darted away before he could register her shock, punching in codes to the computer terminal as fast as he could with one hand. Leia didn’t even have time to unfold herself from the crouched position she had held on the floor for the better part of half an hour before the familiar lurch of hyperspace made her catch her breath. 

Vader was back and held out his hand to her on the floor. She took a deep breath and took it. It didn’t hurt, he didn't attack her, just let go when she stood. She released the breath. Out with anger, out with fear. 

“Where did you learn to do that?” He asked her curiously, unclipping the comlink from his belt. 

She didn’t want to look at him. He looked like Luke when he smiled. If she thought about Luke now she would crumble. 

She flexed her hands, trying to to rid herself of the cramp that came with intricate work. In truth, Leia was no mechanic but extended living on the Falcon meant that she was experienced in bypassing nearly every single component in a ship when it inevitably gave way. 

“Where did you learn to be a mechanic?” She shot back, simply because it was easier than trying to think of an answer that wouldn’t feel like giving away a piece of herself she didn't want to part with or incriminating herself. 

“My mother taught me.” He said. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but looking at her intently, still determined to have her answer. 

She hadn’t thought of him having parents. Logically, she knew they must be there but the thought of Darth Vader’s parents seemed removed from the people who were technically her grandparents. 

Soon after Endor, when the euphoria of survival was first beginning to wane and the enormity of what had to come next was threatening on the horizon she and Luke had locked themselves in her quarters with three bottles of Corellian rum and a memory core which contained nearly the sum knowledge of the inner workings of the last days of the Republic. The Emperor had scoured the holo-net and archives for information which did not meet with his personal approval, but even then the seeds of the Rebellion had saved what they could.

It had not been enough. 

Huge swathes of knowledge had been lost, lives worth of scholarship and philosophy, wiped away as though it had never existed. The library on Alderaan-

Anyway, she had sat with Luke and drunk until she could talk honestly. His eyes were glazed as they both related everything they had ever been told about their birth family, both terrible truth and kind lies.

He had told her, so casually that the enormity of it passed her by until her drunken mind could catch up with his slurred words, that his father had been a freed slave. Even when he had known nothing else he had known that. He told her, with some vestige of pride left over from childhood, that his father had raised the funds to free himself and then his grandmother had been freed by his uncle’s father. Hearing him talk put a weight in her chest, a sticky kind of guilt that she told herself firmly she had nothing to do with. She did not tell him stories of the palaces she grew up in, of the lakes she went swimming in as a child with both her parents, all of them healthy and soft with good living.

He told her all he knew and she did the best she could in kind, although the kind of pure honestly which came so naturally to Luke stuck in her throat until it seemed she would have to cough it out. 

She looked at the man in front of her and, fighting the fear that still lurked in the shadows of her mind, tried to see him as Luke would see him. As the son of a slave, a slave himself, on a world where softness was worn away in dessert storms before it could even begin to live. He looked young, she thought dully, younger than her. 

She had never wanted her brother as much as she did in that moment. 

“Han taught me.” She said eventually. 

Vader did his best to hide how uncomfortable he was, as though he was afraid she would dissolve into tears at the name, or possibly even try and attack him again. Instead of answering, and with his prosthetic hand held close to his chest, he took the comlink from his pocket held it to his mouth. 

“How’s the situation on the bridge, Obi-wan? We’ve patched the hyperdrive but I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”

No answer. 

Vader frowned, shaking the device. “Obi-wan?”

The comlink crackled, wavering until the static solidified into a voice. “General Skywalker?”

Leia hadn’t realised Vader was in repose until she felt him focus with laser like intensity. It was as though he had been distilled, some unnoticeable level of movement abandoned. 

“Cody, where’s Obi-wan?”

The line fizzled, the voice hard to make out in the static. 

“…bridge hit…General Kenobi…taken down to the…Tano.” 

He did not stop to look her, nor say a word. If she hadn’t been watching him intently she would have missed it, the flash of fear, followed by instant movement. He was out past the door at a dead sprint and Leia followed him without conscious decision. He ran with disregard for the troopers or repairs happening around him. It was a struggle to keep up but by the time he was furiously punching in his pass codes into a bulkhead Leia was mere moments behind. He entered it wrong the first time, shaking, and cursed as he was forced to start again. 

He was in the Med-bay before the door had even finished opening, Leia following at a more sedate pace. 

The first thing she noticed was it was much better equipped than the Med-centre she had woken up in that morning. It was sorely lacking in the panic and carnage she had been expecting after Vader’s frenzied reaction. Instead there were troopers being seen to in an orderly manner, many sporting the occasional splint or black eye.

Vader had paid little attention, rushing forward to a biobed and calling over a medic in poorly concealed agitation. Leia moved closed, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, to see that it was Kenobi laid out, not responding to Vader’s increasingly less gentle prodding. 

“What happened, Kix?” Vader asked tersely. 

It was the same trooper that had seen to her earlier that answered. 

“Lucky hit to the bridge, sir. He and Commander Tano were both brought here. He had his bell rung, but he’ll be fine.”

Leia looked down at Kenobi, somehow managing to look pinched even when unconscious. Vader looked barely reassured. 

“Then why is he…?” He asked gesturing with his good hand. 

The medic shifted his weight and if Leia didn’t know better she would have said he looked guilty. “He was brought here under protest, sir. I barely managed to tell him he had a concussion before he was making plans to be back at the bridge so I…ensured he had a little rest.”

Vader managed to crack a smile. “It’ll do him good I’m sure.” He made an abortive movement as if to offer some level of comfort before deciding better of it. 

“And Ahsoka?”

Before Kix managed to even open his mouth to answer there was a loud expletive and the sound of a privacy curtain being pulled open. 

“Over here, master.”

Vader turned and saw Ahsoka, leaving Kenobi without another glance. 

“Thank the Force.” He breathed out, shoulders finally releasing some of their tension. “I thought you were hurt.”

“I was.” Said Ahsoka sourly, a medic pulling a sling tight across her shoulder. “One of the Sep fighters got a lucky hit in- ow!” She hissed as her sling was tied off. “Oh, hi Leia!”

Leia nodded back and Ahsoka carried on. 

“We took a direct hit to the bridge and the shields were already low so we got most of it. We’d got most of their fighters by that point and Rex cleared up the dregs because, well.” She looked down at the sling. “I managed to get Master Obi-wan to take me here because he wouldn’t come down for himself and Kix sedated him pretty much immediately.”

Leia had had the same thing happen to her once. It was one of the many reasons she no longer trusted Luke’s guileless expressions. 

Vader dropped onto the side of Ahsoka’s bed. “Good. I don’t think he slept at all last night.” He cut off abruptly and when Leia looked at him he looked as though he were trying to wrestle some great emotion away, as though he was struggling to sit still and calm. Leia sat on the chair by Kenobi’s bed and tried to go unnoticed. 

“I’m so sorry, Ahsoka!” Vader burst out. Leia had been expecting anger, not the blatant self-recrimination that she could feel coming off of him in waves. Ahsoka looked unsurprised. “I shouldn’t have sent you up there alone. I should have had you come with me but I didn’t and now you’re hurt.”

“It’s not your fault, Master. You couldn’t have known this would happen.”

“You’re my padawan, Ahsoka. I’m meant to keep you safe.”

“We’re all here aren’t we? We’re in the middle of a war, Master. You can’t keep me safe from all of it.” She reached out her hand and laid it on his shoulder. His face was twisted into something fierce and angry.

“I could try.” He muttered.

Once more Leia wondered at how young he was. He couldn’t be much Ahsoka, certainly younger than her. Leia looked at them, the tableau they presented, and considered them. With a little perspective she could see the differences between teacher and apprentice ran deep. Vader had none of the Jedi-like calm that Luke carried with him now, even with her untrained senses she could feel the agitation in him, the kernel of pain that she knew would rot right through him. 

Ahsoka did not. 

Leia looked at the young girl, the girl who she was increasing sure she had met before, and was reminded of Fulcrum. Under that boundless youthful energy there was a core of something immovable, steadfast. She had barely known Old Ben, but she had seen how he met his death. It reminded her of that. 

She carefully didn’t look at Kenobi.

She watched as Ahsoka, with her broken arm, tried to comfort her Master. She didn’t know how long she sat there watching them, trying to take their measure but she was startled out of her reverie by Kix, the clone with the tattoo in Aurebesh on the side of his head. 

“Are you alright, miss?”

She tried a smile but thought from his reaction it might have come out more pained than she meant. “I’m fine.” She said trying to look reassuring. 

He looked unconvinced and returned a moment later with a ration bar and a look that told her it would be no use arguing. She took it and tried to be grateful. She attempted to take a bite and nearly broke her teeth. Across from her it seemed like Ahsoka was having no trouble with hers. 

“How’s the hand?” Ahsoka asked Vader, through a mouthful of dense protein. 

Vader had commandeered her bedside table, spreading out the components of his arm best he could as he struggled to make the repairs one handed. He twitched sporadically and from the grunts of pain, Leia knew the prosthetic must have been wired into his nervous system. He hissed as another jolt ran through him. Leia didn’t bother trying to repress the swell of petty glee in her chest. 

“Not great.” He said eventually. “They told me I’d need to wait until I got to the temple but considering we’re hours out from Coruscant-” another jolt and a growl of mounting frustration. 

Leia allowed her mind to wander as she watched them. Ahsoka could offer little help with her arm in a sling but Vader continued best he could. She knew when they arrived they were going to present her to the council as though she were an interesting find they had discovered on their journey to be categorised and examined, but beyond that, what awaited her? She was never truly unaware of the Force, especially after Luke had opened her mind to it, but right now it was nothing more than a peaceful hum at the back of her consciousness. There was no guidance, no nudges and no information about where she was to go next. Was it permanent? Was she stuck here until she had changed something? Was she ever going to see what was left of her family again? To have it taken away after she had only just found it would be especially cruel, she thought to herself. She didn’t know what she had been missing until Luke crashed into her life and balanced her out. She had lived most of her life without a brother but now she couldn’t imagine going on without him. Sometimes she felt like she and Luke were one person split across two bodies and he had somehow got all the good parts. 

She focused on Vader, on the dark blond hair and familiar smile, and for a moment allowed herself to miss her brother. 

The chime of an incoming com broke her contemplation. 

Vader picked up and the voice of a clone came through. “General, the hyperdrive repairs are failing, we need you to come back down.”

He sighed and looked down at his hand, still in several pieces. “On my way, Skywalker out.” Ahsoka looked at him uncertainly as he turned to address Leia for the first time since arriving in the Med-bay. “Ready for round two?”

Deep breath. Deep breath. She didn’t want to go again. Thoughts of Luke made her mind swim as she tried to think what he would do. She hated everything for a moment before getting up and crossing the room in three strides. 

“Hold still.” She said brusquely instead of answering him. She didn’t bother asking for permission as she sat opposite him and began to pry the plating off his arm. 

“Hey!”

Ahsoka looked to her master but he shook his head. “Do you know what you’re doing?” He asked doubtfully. 

Leia pulled out the thumb pin and set about reconnecting the proximal phalanges as her answer. Of the five only two were too warped to be put back into use. She locked them in position. The use of three fingers was better than none. 

Luke had taught her this, right back when he had been having his fitted for the first time. Something of an engineer himself, he had been disturbingly pleased by his new hand, gleefully explaining each part to her. When he needed help reassembling it she had been cautious and gentle, terrified she was going to hurt him even more. With Vader under her hands she shocked him with a live wire twice on purpose. 

“How’d you learn how to do that?” He asked in surprise, holding it up once she was done. It would still need to be replaced when they arrived but he rotated the wrist and moved his fingers well enough to make the repairs, the whirring and clicking the only sign anything was out of alignment. 

His comlink chimed again and he swore before taking off, presumably to do a better job of patching the hyperdrive than when he was forced to instruct Leia. She sat back and sighed, trying to roll the tension out of her neck. 

“No, but really, how did you do that?” Ahsoka asked when he was gone. 

The girl looked so curious and intrigued that Leia answered before she had even decided if it was wise. 

“My brother. He has something similar.”

Ahsoka looked even more interested that Leia wished she just hadn’t answered. “Is he like you?”

“Like me?”

“You know,” She said lowered her voice conspiratorially, “with the Force?”

Leia looked at her, open and excited, and couldn’t lie. “He’s like me.” She sad eventually. 

“Wizard.” She breathed out as she leaned back into her cushion. 

It didn’t long until Ahsoka had closed her eyes and fell into a light sleep, the nerves and pain of the day catching up with her. 

Leia rose from her chair, and for the lack of anything else to do, began to pace in the relative calm of the Med-bay. 

The council would ask more difficult questions of her than that. They would want to know who she was, where she had trained, _if_ she had been trained…what were they going to do with her? She hardly wanted them to teach her but what if they didn’t give her a choice? Was she there fore a reason? Should she come clean and tell them everything and just hope that they believed her?

Could she make any of it, any of the painful mess to come, better?

She paused in her pacing and looked at Kenobi. He was still out cold. His scuffed armour had been removed and laid out at the foot of his bed. He slept unaware that the man who would one day kill him had stood over him and panicked when he thought he was hurt . 

Could she save him?

She had never really known him but from what Luke had told her he had been a figure on the fringe of Luke’s life when he was growing up in the desert. How did he go from revered general of the clone wars to a hermit in the Judland wastes? Her own father had mentioned him from time to time, always in connection to someone else, but she had gotten the sense that they had known each well enough. What had happened to him?

She was unsure how much longer passed in silent contemplation before she was brought back to the presence by the descending whine of the ship falling from hyperspace.

“What’s happened? Are we being attacked?” She demanded of the nearest clone. 

It was Kix, once more. “Relax, miss.” He said, “We’ve reached Coruscant space, we’ve made it back. Once we’re cleared we’ll be able to go down to the planet surface.”

She tried to calm her racing heart, to still the sudden pounding in her head. The change had roused Ahsoka who was groggily trying to get her bearings and the hiss of a hypodermic injector was followed by the sound of Kenobi’s muttering as he woke. 

“Should have had you court marshalled back on Anaxes.” He grumbled as Kix helped him into sitting upright.

“If you can find anyone else willing to put up with you, sir, be my guest.”

Kenobi almost looked like he was smiling before he turned and saw her and Ahsoka. His eyes flickered quickly over her before settling on to Ahsoka. “You look remarkably well for someone who had to be escorted to Medical.” He said lightly. 

Ahsoka looked nervously at him and then at Leia as though for help. 

“Leave her alone, old man. She did what you were too stubborn to do.” 

“Anakin!”

Leia looked at the source of the voice and, sure enough, Vader was in the door, looking a good deal more at ease than when he had left. The throbbing in her head continued.

“How long have I been asleep?” Kenobi asked as Vader dropped on the side of his bed. 

“Four hours more or less. We’ve just got the go ahead to leave orbit so we should be back at the temple within the hour.”

“Good, good.” Said Kenobi, “And how are you Leia?”

She started at being addressed directly but managed an unconvincing smile. “I’m fine.” 

“You look a little pale.” He said, eyeing her critically. “Were you injured?”

In truth she was beginning to feel a little wan, but once again she tried to make herself relax. Deep breath in, hold, relax. Kenobi was still watching her. 

Vader spoke instead. “She was with me the whole time. She’s fine.”

“Any word from the council?”

“Ready to convene when we are.”

Leia held herself still. Ready to convene to decide her fate would have been a more accurate statement. She couldn’t bring herself to listen as Vader and Kenobi began to plan and gather their effects for transport down to the surface. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Ahsoka asked quietly from beside her.

In truth the situation was beginning to set in. Like the pressure behind her eyes she could feel dread gathering in her chest. Was it truly only yesterday she had woken up with Han’s arm over her waist in her own room? Was that all the time it took for someone’s life to go horribly, terribly wrong?

She reassured the girl and tried to make herself believe it. By the time they were descending to the planet surface she had broken out in a cold sweat. What if they could tell she didn’t belong? Would they simply send her away, alone in the universe with not a soul who knew her? She leaned forwards in her seat and tried to focus on her breathing and not being sick.

Out the window the Coruscant skyline drew closer and for one wild moment she considered running away. Just jumping on a ship to anywhere, anywhere at all, so long as it wasn’t the Jedi temple. To think she had kept an apartment on Coruscant for three years and never visited the site where the temple had been. It had been razed by the Emperor early on his reign and made utterly unremarkable but old superstition still lingered. They used to say that if you went there at night you could hear them whispering in the breeze, ghosts of the long dead Order. 

She rubbed her temples. 

The craft landed, Vader, Kenobi and Ahsoka exited and Leia stumbled out behind them. Vader caught her elbow and she jerked away as if burnt. 

“I’m fine.” She said before they could ask. All she wanted was a dark room and a door that locked. Vader didn’t question her further, simply held his hands up in surrender as they began the walk. 

Leia followed them, trying not to fall behind. She focused on their heels as they walked in front of her. She felt like it should disturb her, seeing the man who had tortured her and killed countless members of her friends and family as he walked ahead of her, nudging his padawan off balance. He laughed as Ahsoka tried to trip him in return. 

“Nearly there now.” Kenobi. He had fallen in step with her. There was concern etched on his face as he looked at her, or perhaps that was how he always looked. She couldn’t concentrate. She felt like she had vertigo, like the world was spinning away from her and she was going to be sick if she broke her concentration…

Something was wrong. 

She had been fine an hour ago. She was fine…why did she feel like her head was going to cleave in two? What was wrong with her?

They turned a corner and above them rose the five towers of the Jedi temple atop a ziggurat that would have put Yavin IV to shame. 

She staggered backwards. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Her head…she couldn’t think. There was too much noise.

“Leia? Leia, can you hear me?”

It was a terrible singing, like thousands of voices lifted in choral song all at one. How was she meant to contain this? It felt like it was coming from inside her, reverberating in her bones, searing through her mind. She was only one person how was she meant to hear this, to hold it, without her mind ripping itself a part?

“Master? Master, what’s wrong with her?”

“Leia, can you hear me?”

She was being lowered to the ground. She couldn’t tell by who, or even what they were saying. All she could see was the temple, immeasurable and immense and filling her entire mind. Like a thousand bells tolling all at once, reaching a fever pitch that was going to tear her apart.

“What did she say?”

She couldn’t tell if the words were coming from inside her body or outside. Was she speaking? She could barely feel.

“Master, I don’t think she’s shielding. Let me try something.”

Two hands either side of her face, a foreign presence in her mind. It was like she being forced back inside her own head, being separating from the terrible noise. She could see a face…Luke?

No.

He was going to kill her like he killed everyone else. He was going to hurt her again, set her veins aflame and make her watch while he killed everyone she loved. Someone was screaming. She couldn't tell if it was her. 

“Anakin, get back you’re making her worse! Leia, Leia focus on me.’

He was gone. He was gone. 

“Focus on my voice, Leia. Breathe with me. Focus on your breathing.”

A familiar command. In with peace. In with peace. The world started to come back into focus. It was Kenobi. He was crouched beside her, blocking the temple. She tried to match her breathing to his. The air rattled in her chest. 

“Focus.” 

What was she meant to focus on? Luke’s face swam in front of her but she could still feel Vader hovering outside her line of sight. Had he killed him? Was he going to hurt him like he hurt Han? The thought of Han burned more than her chest. She didn’t want to think about him. She didn’t want to think about any of them. 

She wanted to go home.

“Master, I think she’s going to-”

She let go and slipped away. The silence that enveloped her was a blessing, and she thought no more as she gave herself over to it fully. 


	3. Chapter 3

Leia awoke on an exhale, the remnants of confused dreams still clinging to her. She tried to centre herself, to throw off the phantom feel of her father’s hand at her cheek, the mechanical click of her mother’s lungs in her ear. She took a measured breath, held it and exhaled. Slowly, she tried to sit. She was in a nightgown, soft but plain. Someone had taken down her hair and braided it simply in a single plait. 

It was a calm room she found herself in, the ceiling high and the windows long. It must have been mid-morning from the sun streaming in, yet no one was there. Just Leia and a row of empty beds. It was soothing not to have to school herself, even momentarily. She pressed an experimental hand to her head. No pain. She shied away from the thought of reaching out with anything but her hands, lest the terrible ringing return. It was gone for now, though she knew in the same way she had known who was the other side of the rubble before he pulled her out, that she was merely insulated from it. The very air in this place seemed alive.

“You’re awake.”

Leia started badly at the unfamiliar voice. She twisted sharply to see a Twi’lek woman at the door. She watched warily as the woman approached, though from her brisk and efficient movements the woman neither cared nor deemed the scrutiny particularly important. 

She was older than Leia had first thought, and as she grew near Leia tensed under a well-practiced and assessing eye. The woman hummed and approached the bed. 

“Where am I? Who are you?” Leia asked, fighting to keep her voice steady. It was rare she ever felt diminutive, but in a stranger’s clothes and her hair in a child’s braid it felt like her dignity had been stripped away too. 

“You’re in the Halls of Healing and I am the Chief Healer, Vokara Che. Do you remember how you came to be here?” 

Leia tried to cast her mind back to the last thing she could remember. Something throbbed behind her eye. 

“There was…singing. Something was singing but I couldn’t…it wouldn’t…” She broke off, frustrated, and scrubbed her palm across her face. She didn’t have the vocabulary to properly express the feeling of being shaken apart, cleaved in two by something that seemed to attack her very sense of self. 

“You were brought to the Halls after collapsing upon arrival at the Temple. It seems you were overwhelmed. It is not uncommon.”

Leia had parsed subtler half-truths in her time but Healer Che remained unflustered by her dark look, though she did amend herself. “It is not uncommon in the children.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

Leia must have shown some outward sign of surprise as the hint of a smile touched the corner of Healer’s Che’s mouth. 

“Two days?” She repeated. 

Healer Che pressed her back into reclining into her bed with a hand to the shoulder. “It was very dramatic, so I’m told. But yes, you were brought here two days ago by Generals Kenobi and Skywalker. Padawan Tano has been by several times for news.” 

Ahsoka had been in her dreams last night, she was sure of it. It had been Fulcrum, trying to tell her something as they sat on the floor of her father’s office. She couldn’t remember. She shook herself free of the memory.

“They wanted to bring me in front of the council. They said that the council would know what to do with me.”

Healer Che kept her still with a firm hand. “Is that so?” She said blandly. “Well, unfortunately for the council you are under my care now. You will see them when I deem fit and not before.” 

Leia watched warily as Che lifted the hand from her shoulder and closed her eyes. Her eyes darted behind closed lids but Leia could discern nothing, not even when she opened them and looked at Leia critically. 

“Force exhaustion. Unusual but not entirely unexpected given the circumstances.” 

“What circumstances?”

“Your complete and utter lack of shielding.” Leia stared at her blankly. Healer Che sighed. “This pain you felt, it began before you saw the Temple, yes?”

Leia tried to think back. “I think so.” She said slowly. “Yes, I think I had it on the ship.”

Che nodded. She looked weary up close. “The closer you came to Coruscant the more profoundly you would have felt it. The Force exists in all things and in all places, but Coruscant is one of the places where it shines most brightly. It is our home, where we congregate, where we live and breath and learn. For those who are underprepared it can be…overwhelming. Initially, at least.”

The memory of the shivering toll ringing through her bones made her shiver. “That was a little more than overwhelming.” Leia said, trying to keep her voice from becoming too pointed. 

If Healer Che noticed her only reaction was a raised eyebrow. “As I said, usually those affected are children, young ones who have had not had time to put up a defence against the brunt of it.”

“Am I…” Leia swallowed and asked more forcibly. “Am I just weak, then?”

“These are questions for the council.” She said, before relenting under Leia’s stare. “It is not an issue of weakness, but of training. You are strong with the Force, that much is clear. But you have not even the most rudimentary of shielding. We have isolated you from the other patients and acclimatised you to the Temple but this is not a permanent solution. General Skywalker said he found your mind to be-”

“What does he know about my mind?” She snapped. She was breathing too quickly again. She tried to control the tightness in her chest. 

Che watched her wrestle for control a moment longer. “He was the one who brought you here. He tried to intercede when he realised you were in need of aid, but I’m told you rejected his help. Forcibly, so I’ve heard.”

He had been in her head. He had been in he mind again. She wanted to reach inside and scrub it raw. Pull everything outside of her head and start anew, afresh where he hadn’t touched anything. She wanted to lock it away, so he couldn’t taint any of it ever again. 

Her hands were shaking. She wanted to bury her fingers in her hair and rock, curl into a ball and wrap herself tighter and tighter. She did neither. She folded them in her lap and breathed deeply. 

“What will happen to me now?” She was adrift in this place, untethered in a way she hadn’t been since she was a child who had first stepped foot in the senate. All of the weight and responsibilities that tied her to reality were gone and if she thought about them too long she thought she might be trapped in the uncertainty of it all. 

There was always the next step. Take the next step, and the next and so on and so on until she couldn’t see where she had started. She’d won a war like that, or at the very least survived one. 

“I cannot tell you what the council will decide or what the future will bring. All I can say is that you will stay here until you are fit enough to leave.” Seemingly satisfied that Leia wasn’t going to keel over again Che made her way to the door. “Perhaps you could take the time to adjust.” She called over her shoulder before vanishing once more. 

For the first time since her tumultuous arrival Leia found herself at a loss. Adjust? Life had been nothing but constant adjustments since she was old enough to enter the Senate. It was the stability that was offsetting. Slowly, she lowered her feet to the floor. It was cool to the touch. She looked at her surroundings once more and fought back the creeping bewilderment of being left alone. With nothing else to do she walked to the window and looked out at the Coruscant skyline. It was familiar enough to her after her years of keeping a small flat to be near the Senate but with changes that marked the passage of time. Disconcertingly, the changes were often for the better. Missing buildings that were now whole, streets now bustling that Leia had only ever seen occupied at night. It was missing the signs of abandonment and pervasive dread that had crept along the streets as the puppets were made to dance by their master in the Galactic Senate. The city here seemed to thrum in comparison. It was subtle, a play upon her skin, a whisper in her mind, but perhaps…she cut her line of thought before she chased it to the inevitable conclusion and landed herself back in the bed. Whatever shielding they had managed to coax her into holding did not stop her feeling the cacophony of life just beyond her consciousness. She had no desire to seek it out. 

She looked out the window again, and then along to the empty ward. She also had no desire to stay put.

She righted herself once more, certain that someone would come along and stop her, an emergency would rock them all or that she would simply close her eyes and find herself still buried in the remnants of a hangar bay. When none of these things happened she straightened her shirt, patted down her newly pinned hair and took a breath. 

So began the first day of exploration. 

By day three she was quite sure she had had enough of aimless wanderings. 

True to her word she had tried to adjust. She had walked the halls, never too far from her own quarters where Healer Che would check on her every evening, but far enough she saw others on their own private expeditions. At the back of her mind was the vaguely formed thought that Luke would have removed his other hand to walk through the Jedi Temple in the last days before the Fall, learning and talking and soaking up their knowledge the way he had in his early days in the rebellion. She tried not to think of his disappointment as she sidestepped conversations, ducked through shadowed arches, and ranged barely further than three buildings each way of her own. 

She tried not to think of him very much at all, with varying degrees of success. It was harder sometimes, when she felt the ringing noise of boundless life pressing on her from all sides, the shields she knew she desperately needed still shaky and unreliable. Sometimes, in the very early morning when she awoke from formless dreams that left her unsettled and unsure she would think of him, think of them all, and miss them so wretchedly she could nothing other than sit through the pain until it passed. She wondered if they thought she was dead. If they had pulled up the rubble and rocks which had fallen around her and found no body laying underneath. 

She wondered if Han had told them what had happened before it had all gone wrong. 

That was always the point she had to stand and bustle to somewhere else. With nothing else to occupy her days her mind could wander in a thousand directions. She thought about Luke, of Chewbacca, of her friends, of Mon and Kes and what Yavin IV looked like at sunset. She thought about Vader and her parents and the precise moment she realised she was going to watch her world turn to ash and there was nothing she could do about it.

But she could not think of Han. Every time she tried all she could see was his face as he knelt in front of her, waiting as she cracked his heart in her hands because she didn’t know how to do anything else. 

So she would walk. Each evening she would find her way back to the empty ward and wait in silence for Healer Che to arrive. She would submit to her inspection and remain polite when Healer Che made increasingly pointed remarks about the healing mental powers of meditation. Then she would lay on her thin mattress and wait for the dissonant and jarring images that passed as dreams to come and take her. She woke, each morning, with fleeting impressions; her father’s office, Fulcrum cross legged before her repeating something she could not hear, and the yawning space in her chest where she was sure something used to be. 

It was not until her fourth evening that the emerging pattern broke.

Dusk had barely dimmed the windows before the lights of the city took over when she re-entered her ward to find Healer Che having a rather spirited discussion with General Kenobi. It took her a moment to recognise him out of his scuffed armour, but even so she saw him before either of them realised her presence. 

“Ah, Leia.” He said mildly, when she drew close. “We were just discussing your release from the Halls of Healing.”

“Am I being released?” She asked looking between them. It occurred to her that the discussion had appeared rather one sided and as Healer Che glowered at the General she wondered just how long it had been going on before her arrival. 

“You will be released when _I_ see fit, as is the case with _all_ of my patients.” 

General Kenobi appeared unaffected by her glare. “Vokara, she seems much recovered.” He said gently, “It seems to me that the council might be better equipped to help with any long term problems-”

“Oh, don’t you start being the great Negotiator with me. I’m not at liberty to discuss my patients— _which you well know—_ but I do at least get to decide when they are discharged. Honestly, between you and Skywalker-”

Kenobi rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Leia? Do you feel that you have improved sufficiently to be released?”

Both of them turned to her as she thought. The mention of the council had sent a thrill of alarm through her, but the cycle of the past few days had numbed her. Surely this couldn't be how she was to spend her days here. She had no desire to wait for one of those sickening lurches pushing her to a decision, the same sensation that Luke would call guidance from the Force. 

She weighed her words. “I am better than I was.” She said evenly. 

Kenobi smiled, ever so slightly. “Leia, we had to carry you here from the street. Your being cognisant enough to have this conversation is better than you were.”

“She hasn’t fully mastered shielding herself-”

“But she's acclimatised, she hasn’t collapsed again?”

“Well, no, but-”

“I’ll see the council!” Leia snapped. They both turned to look at her, Che surprised and Kenobi considering, as she calmed herself. She uncurled her fists. “I’ll go to the council.” She repeated as they finished talking over her as though she wasn’t present. “I’d like to go.”

Che pursed her lips but seemed to acquiesce. She watched with narrowed eyes as Kenobi nodded. 

“The council is convening tomorrow. I’ll come by to collect you.” He said before beating a dignified retreat. 

Healer Che looked at her and sighed. “I can’t stop you.” She said eventually. “But perhaps before we go you would care to meditate with me?” She looked at Leia’s face and the ghost of a smile touched that stern mouth. “Or of course you could collapse in front of the council this time?” 

One of her mother’s early lessons to Leia, while she had still been a child, was grace in defeat. Leia decided to heed it.

“Come.” Che said, leading her to the window where the night was beginning to press against the glow of the city, “Clear your mind and we shall practice making sure there are no repeat performances of your arrival.”

Leia sat there, Che’s words unheeded, as she thought of the council. A council of well-groomed savants looking down at her from their perches, picking her apart and wondering what they would find in what remained. 

She took a breath, held it, and released it. 

They would find nothing, she decided. Nothing but the burned out hollow of where everything used to live.

***

By the time that General Kenobi found her the next day Leia was up, hair braided and her meagre possessions arranged with precision. She stood to greet him. 

“The council has already convened.” He said looking at her one spare change of clothes, folded and set at the end of the bed, a small transistor on her bedside table. “Shall we be on our way?”

He led her from the ward, nodding cordially at Healer Che who ignored him pointedly. It did not take them long to progress past the point of her explorations. They followed corridors and crossed courtyards until Leia wondered just how extensive the Temple was. She had once thought the palace of Alderaan to be the grandest place in all the galaxy but it somehow lacked the stillness of the Temple. Fountains and greenery, light and muffled footsteps on worn stone, the place was tranquil in a way that set her on edge. 

“How’s Ahsoka?” She asked just to hear something break that wilful silence. 

“She’s well. Studying today but I’ve no doubt that won’t stop her from causing some kind of havoc.” He sounded almost fond, if a Jedi could be accused of such.

“And…” She trailed off.

“Anakin? Patched up from the firefight but everything is in working order. So I’m told at least.”

A thought occurred to her. “Will he be there? On the council?”

“No, his presence has been requested by the Chancellor today.”

Perhaps he expected her to ask further questions but the mention of the Emperor turned her blood cold. For a moment all she could think of was Luke. Did Vader sit in conference with the Emperor even now? Were the wheels already in motion that would one day threaten the entire galaxy?

She continued on in silence. 

Kenobi led them through a final hall and into a lift. She barely felt it as they ascended into the tower, her anxiety growing by the moment. It was ridiculous, she told herself. She had stood before councils before. Many of them, in fact. She had made her case before royalty, courts, senates and countless others. 

She dared a glance at Kenobi from the corner of her eye. She wanted to emulate his serenity but already her mind was racing. She didn’t have enough time. There was no plan. Even with the evening to prepare how could she be sure of what to say, what to do? True enough, she had been interrogated before, but she had always at least known her own position. She wanted to ask him what they would demand to know. She wanted to organise, to plan, to calculate what she should say and what she should not, but how when it seemed like her very presence here was a game she could not understand? 

She exhaled. Kenobi’s breath was steady. After a moment she tried to match it. 

They left the lift and Kenobi halted in the antechamber before a great set of doors. 

“You have the look of someone being walked to their own execution. Do try to remember, Leia, we’re all on the same side here.”

Leia had been dragged to her execution, or at least to wait for it. She didn’t respond to him, simply nodded as he opened the door.

The council chamber was large but too airy to be truly cavernous. Coruscant was spread like a map outside the windows, speeders nothing but specs, people nothing but ants. The walls of the chamber felt like they curved around her as she was led forward, as though she was in a bubble far removed from the people below. The chamber was circular, twelve chairs of varying size and design spaced around the outer edge. Of them, six were occupied, four by physical bodies and two by wavering holograms. The masters themselves were a mix of species, a quick glance showed everything from baseline human to Kel Dor, all silent and watching. Kenobi led her to the centre where a large circular mosaic radiated from the centre to the outer reaches. 

He cleared his throat once, and Leia felt the attention focus on him. “Masters Yoda, Windu, Plo Koon, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Adi Gallia and Shaak Ti.” Leia looked at each of them in turn and committed their names to her mind. 

“Thank you, Master Kenobi.” Said Master Yoda, whose species she had no name for. She recognised him from Luke’s stories of Dagobah and wondered if this was the same supposed Jedi master that had ridden around on her brother like a backpack for the best part of his training. The chair was much more dignified, she decided. 

Kenobi hesitated for a moment, seemingly unwilling to leave her in the middle of the room, alone. It lasted barely a moment before he nodded to her once and took his seat. Logically, she knew she was in no danger from these old masters in their chairs, but in the centre, unable to keep all of them in her field of vision at once, she couldn’t help but feel on edge. For a moment there was quiet as they all waited, silently judging. 

“Your name?” It came from the man Kenobi had named as Windu. His mouth was a stern line, his eyes hard. 

“Leia.” 

“Your full name.”

“Leia Antilles.” 

He didn’t believe her, she didn’t need the Force to tell her that though she could feel a thread of it in the back of her mind, a distrust that strung, tense, through the air between them. 

“And where are you from, Leia Antilles?”

“Alderaan.” There was no use lying on that one. Everything from her manner to her hair screamed Alderaanian. Han had once said-

It didn’t matter what Han had once said. 

“Long way from home, you were.” 

Leia merely inclined her head and said nothing. It was making her uneasy to have so many eyes watching her, just waiting for a slip that would tell them more than she wanted them to know. Her mother had taught her at a young age, that she would follow her as queen. There had been lessons in public speaking, in posture and manner. She thought of her mother now and remembered. She would feel no fear and so there would be none to show. She focused on her breathing, steady in her chest. 

Windu leaned forward. “Why were you on Shi’so IX?”

She could honestly have said that she had no idea that was where she was until he said it. She remained silent. She had no answer. 

“Who were you with?”  


Silence again.

“If you do not answer us in truth you can hardly expect us to release you.”

Her temper flared before she could smother it. “You have no right to hold me here! None!”

“We have testimony from three of our own that you defied a planet-wide evacuation, attacked a Jedi knight—twice!—“

“-and saved the flagship of the fleet. This is not a trial, Mace.” Leia looked around to where Kenobi had spoken. He was looking at Master Windu, who was glaring back. After a moment the tension between them abated. 

“These are dangerous times.” Windu said to the room at large. “And here is one who refuses to answer even the most basic of our questions.” There was a murmur throughout the room, the Tholothian woman inclining her head in agreement.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.” Said Leia, her voice carefully even. “I would like to be released.” Even as she said it she knew it could not be so simple. Even here, her mind protected as best she could with little idea how to do it, she could feel the inexorable pull of the Force around her, coaxing her onwards. 

“Seek to detain you, we do not.” Murmured Yoda. Leia looked at him and he met her gaze. There was curiosity there, but at least none of the hostility she could feel from Windu. “Knowledge of the Force you have, yet training you have not.”

Leia tried not to bristle on Luke’s behalf. He had trained her best he could, considered his own slapdash education and her resistance every step of the way. “I am Force sensitive.” She said, and hoped that none of them could see how dearly the admission had cost her. “Nothing more.”

“You attacked a Jedi knight-!” Windu began.

Kenobi chuckled. “She was provoked. I think there are few of us here who do not know Anakin well enough to believe it was not entirely her fault.” 

He sounded amused as he folded his hands in front of him. A few members of the council laughed with him, the Togruta agreeing under her breath, but Kenobi shot her a look of warning. 

“Padawan Tano said that you spoke of another.” Said the Kel Dor, Master Plo Koon as General Kenobi had introduced him, “A brother, like you.”

She couldn’t talk about Luke in front of a Jedi council. Especially when she still could not shake the feeling that he should be here in her place, learning from them all, helping them. “I am not here to talk about-” she began. 

“Did he teach you? Are there more like you? We must know. Speak!” 

“Honestly, Mace. We do not have sole claim over use of the Force.”

Windu looked at her, “No.” He said. “We do not.”

She felt her temper rise at the insinuation. That they could sit here _judging_ her, implying like she could be anything like Vader, the Emperor and a thousand other officers that _they failed to stop_ … an ugly feeling bubbling inside until she did not care if it was wise to speak, only that she must. 

“I have done nothing wrong! I will not stand here and be talked over like some kind of- some kind of…half-witted, imperial… _Gartal!_ ” Several eyebrows rose at her vocabulary, at least those who had encountered High Alderaanian and even shaking with the force her anger she heard a snort of laughter turned hastily into a cough.

There was a moment of silence before Yoda shook his head. “Fear, I sense in you. Fear, anger and suffering. Lead, these do, to the Dark Side. Unguided, succumb and fall, you will. Help, we can.”

Her fists were clenched, nails biting half crescents into her palms. How could they sit there and tell her that she, _she_ , who had given everything to destroy the very thing they feared, would fall? They couldn’t know, and she knew she could not tell them, but to be accused of this when her whole planet had paid the price for her loyalty…while even now one of their own met with the Empire’s architect. It was more than could be borne. 

“I do not need your help.” She said and it was only her years of publicity and authority that kept her spine straight and her shoulders even. “I do not wish for your help. I just…I just want to go home.”

She wanted Luke. For as much as her brother was a cheerful idiot she knew that he would have the right phrase, the right thought for this very moment. 

She wanted Han. She closed her eyes and accepted it. She wanted Han. 

She could hear the rustle of people shifting uncomfortably. Good. She hoped they were. 

“Release you without answers, we cannot. In danger, you may be.”

The Togruta introduced as Master Ti spoke for the first time, “Could not we seek out the brother, bring him here to us? To both learn and teach-”

The image of her brother being brought there, before the council was too much. No matter how impossible, the thought of him anywhere near Vader caused anger like bile to rise inside her. Her brother who was too trusting, too kind-

“Perhaps he could-”

“No!”

The word was pushed from her and, like the moment she was pulled from the rubble, she pushed outwards. Had they been standing they would have been bowled over, she was sure. All of the anger and fear expelled from her body, she wanted them to know how she felt, to feel as she felt, to break as she had broken. A vicious joy rose in her, twisted, as she saw their horror. She wanted them to _hurt_ , to _fear_ as she did-

“Enough!”

Windu was standing and just as quickly as her anger had risen it drained away, leaving nothing in its wake. She almost gasped as her consciousness adjusted and her mind snapped back to her body. Her head dropped until she was staring at the mosaic on the floor, trying to keep her breath in her body long enough to stop the pervading sense of dread from creeping through her.

“Detain her.” He said coldly. 

She wanted to fall to her knees. What was she becoming that she took joy in others fearing her? It was too late for her, she thought, as her hands started to shake. She was just like _him_ , there was truly nothing left of her. The council was a babble of noise in the background, but she could not sharpen it into words. 

There was a hand on her shoulder. She tried to focus, to bring herself under control. It was unbecoming. 

“Leia?” It was General Kenobi. “Calm down Leia, no one’s going to bring anyone here. No one’s gong to take you anywhere.” 

She tried to focus on his voice. She held her breath. Released it. In, hold, release. She tried to get a hold of herself. She nodded shakily and he squeezed her shoulder. 

Windu was still standing, “What would you have us do, Obi-wan?”

Kenobi sounded weary when he replied, his hand dropping from her shoulder. “Do? There is nothing to be done. Leia has committed no wrong beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time and reacting when provoked. None of those registered in the evacuation have claimed any relation and as a civilian she is under no obligation to provide us with any names. Being attuned to the Force is not a crime.” 

“Come, Obi-wan.” said Master Ti, “She is strong in the Force. As strong as many we’ve seen.” She cast a glance at Leia. “Stronger than most.”

“She might have been sent to test our weaknesses.”

“She could cause havoc if-”

“Unchecked she might-”

“The Sith-”

Windu’s voice broke across the others. “She is untrained and powerful, Obi-wan. That is a dangerous combination. I do not have to be the one to tell you that.”

“Then I shall train her.”

Leia expected the fever pitch to continue among the council at Kenobi’s bald announcement, not the silence that fell. A rueful glance, a tired smile, what could have been a chuckle from Yoda. Even Windu, as he rubbed a hand across his face looked more resigned than shocked. 

“Talk to Master Qui-Gon’s padawan, I see we do.” Yoda said after a moment of silence. Leia saw Kenoi’s posture stiffen even as Windu’s mouth twitched into what might have been a smile. 

“Nine years old is one thing, Master Kenobi, a woman grown is quite another.” 

“I am aware, Master Mundi.” Said Kenobi, “But I do not propose to knight her, merely train her to control the power she has.”

“We can hardly keep her here!”

“Yet nor can we let her leave!”

“The Temple is not a prison, Master Gallia.” She wondered if they could hear the strain in Kenobi’s voice. He had yet to take his seat, still standing under their scrutiny with her. 

“Prison, the Temple is not.” Agreed Yoda, “Yet practical, we must be. Opinion, do you have, Leia Antilles?”

Her attention snapped back at being addressed directly in an unfamiliar name. Her mouth was dry. She wanted to leave. She wanted to crawl back into the rubble she had been found in and open her eyes to Yavin IV. 

“I don’t want to stay here.”

“Where else could you go?” Began Windu, “Back to Shi'so IX? To Alderaan?”

“No…no, I-” She couldn’t think properly. All she could feel was the sick glee when she had thought about making them feel as she did. 

“Do you wish to train as a Jedi?” Asked Master Ti.

“No.” All she wanted was a moment, a moment to process without their focus raking over her skin. She felt like carrion to be picked at, stood in the centre of their circle getting smaller and smaller. She tried to remember, to plant herself and decide. It was no good.

“Do know what you want?” Asked Master Gallia, her voice hard. 

Leia did not. 

Silence. 

“Attached to your former life, you are. Led to fear and anger these attachments have. Stay, learn. Come in time, peace will.”

Leia waited for the familiar swell of anger but nothing came. The emptiness was somehow worse, stealing her words and leaving mute resistance in its place. Wary eyes watched her, as if waiting for her rise again, attack again. How was she meant to tell a council of blind fools that attachment was the very last thing she had left. It was being set adrift, being left to struggle on alone that was twisting into what she was becoming. Everyone leaving her, vanishing into dust and nothingness, leaving her as they carried on with life, that was suffering.

She opened her mouth but the words would not come. All of the speeches she had given, all of the commands and orders and requests. Nothing would come. 

“None of you have anything to tell me about peace.” She said eventually, her words coming quiet but heavily in the silence. 

“Stay, you will.” Said Yoda at long last. She felt eyes upon her like she might resist. She said nothing. “Master Kenobi, stand, your offer still does?”

Kenobi bowed his head. “Yes, Master.”

“Our guest, she will be. Resolved, the issue is.” He spoke with finality and none of the council contradicted him. 

Leia barely noticed as Kenobi bowed to the council once more, and turned to her. “Will you follow me, Leia?”

“Yes, I- of course.” Her voice was hollow but she allowed herself to be herded gently from the room. The murmuring started up behind her once more but she was deaf to it as she followed Kenobi blindly. It was not until they reached the lift that she had the forethought to respond properly. “Thank you.” She said quietly. He nodded.

She followed him through halls and doorways, uncaring of her surroundings. It all looked the same to her now. She nearly walked into the back of him when he stopped before a final door, tapping in a code. He stood back to let her enter first. 

It was a suite of rooms, not unlike the rest of the Temple in appearance, but somehow more welcoming. There was an open living space, low chairs and tables arranged centrally. A small kitchenette to the side, open widows letting in light. Shelves took up much of the walls, a few trailing plants hanging freely. In the corner was a desk, buried under datapads, a hydrospanner and various other mechanical components. Ahsoka was sat muttering to herself as she looked through them. It felt lived in, homely and personalised, and greatly unlike where Leia had spent the last three nights. 

“Master Obi-wan, Leia!” Said Ahsoka, visibly brightening when they entered. “How was the…” She trailed off, looking past Leia to Kenobi. 

Kenobi moved past Leia, motioning for her to take a seat on the sofa. She did so numbly, looking out of the window ahead. Another courtyard. She could no longer tell them apart. 

“Ahsoka, I do believe I saw Barriss on her way to the archives just now. Perhaps your work would benefit from joining her?”

Ahsoka looked at Kenobi uncomprehendingly for a moment before her gaze flickered to Leia.  


“What- Oh! Of course. Yes, Master Obi-wan, I think I’ll go study with her.” Any other time Ahsoka’s unconvincing subtlety might have made her laugh but she was barely recovered enough to feel anything other than the faint gratitude of one less person to be around. Ahsoka cast around the mess on the table, “I’ll just…” she started gathering datapads, seemingly at random, moving the hydrospanner to the side. 

“Has Anakin come back?” Kenobi asked the girl as she stacked her pads.  


“No, he’s still out with Rex.” She said distractedly. 

“Rex? I thought- no matter.” He took a seat opposite Leia. Ahsoka gathered her things before darting over, something in her hands. 

“I just made it before you got here. Here.” She pressed a cup of hot tea into Leia’s hands. Leia’s fingers curled around it of their own volition. 

“Thank you.” She managed. Ahsoka smiled before rushing back over and grabbing her things. “Bye!” She called out as the door closed behind her. 

There was silence as they sat together, the afternoon sun bright through the window. Leia took a sip of her tea just for something to do. It was a spiced blend. She closed her eyes and tried to place it. 

“She’s very kind.” She said eventually. 

Kenobi seemed to come back to himself as though his own mind had been wandering. “Ahsoka? Yes, she is. You’ll be seeing more of her I expect. We have a spare room here, that is if you-”

“Thank you.” 

Silence once more. 

She held her cup in both hands and looked into it. “Why did you help me?” She asked eventually without looking up. There must have been a thousand ways to ask more politely but she was tired. Not in body so much as simply tired of mind. 

Kenobi tore his gaze from the window and seemed to consider her before he spoke. “You remind me of someone.”

She waited for the coming blow, the anger that should have preceded it. Nothing. 

“I remind you of…” She jerked her head to the desk and the abandoned hydrospanner.

“Of Anakin? Yes, in a way.”

He didn’t elaborate and she was too tired to ask. For so long it had been her very worst nightmare, for someone to look at her and see _him_ …but she could hardly deny it. She wanted to shiver as she remember the stricken faces on the council as she…no, no use denying it. She thought of Luke and his easy smiles. 

“I wasn’t always like this, you know. I used to be a good person, or a better one at least.” She said, looking out the window. A breeze swept through the courtyard, sending a leaf spiralling from one of the carefully kept trees. She watched it fall. “Something…something terrible happened and I just can’t…I’m just angry all the time. I don’t want to be like this, but sometimes it’s just like I can’t stop it. Like it’s easier.”

It took her a moment to bring herself to look at him. She half expected he would be angry himself, or perhaps he simply would not understand. What use had a Jedi for rage? When the silence became too much she steeled herself. 

He did not look much of anything. Calm, perhaps. Certainly not disgusted by her admission. 

“Sometimes,” he began slowly, “the things that shape us leave marks behind. We are affected by them until we learn to deal with them. That does not mean you are a bad person, Leia. It doesn’t even mean that in time you cannot recover. Anger is not who you are, it is merely a habit to overcome.” 

She looked down at her cup once more and gathered herself to say something that she had never admitted out loud. “I don’t…I don’t always want to. Sometimes it feels like all remains of everything that was taken away is the anger that was left behind. Sometimes it’s all that’s keeping me together.” 

It was true, she realised, as she said it. She could not think of her parents without feeling that simmering beneath her skin. She could not remember Alderaan, home, without thinking of Vader, the feeling of being watched as everything was taken from her. 

Kenobi leaned forward. She couldn’t tell how old he was, she thought, she couldn’t tell if he was old or simply very, very tired. 

“That isn’t anger, Leia.” He said gently, “That is grief.”

To her mortification her eyes were burning. “What would you know?” She asked thickly, rubbing her eyes angrily. “I thought Jedi didn’t feel anything.”

She didn’t think that, of course she didn’t. How could she when Luke was next to her and she could feel his own emotions along side her own. Kenobi merely smiled, sad and tired, but a smile nonetheless. 

“If only that were true.” He said. “I have known anger and I have known grief and the cruelest thing about both is that they never hurt only ourselves. But perhaps that is a conversation for another time.” He braced his hands on his knees and stood. “I’m going to ready the guest room— no, please, stay and drink your tea, you’ve had quite the afternoon— I’ll only be in the other room.”

He left and, quite abruptly, Leia was alone. 

Was it true? Yes, she thought, it was. She thought of her last day on Yavin IV, of seeking out Han because she was upset and hurt and so very alone. For the first time when the memory of Han came, the look on his face, the dawning horror as he realised she was going to step away just a moment before she did, she did not push it away. He deserved better than a shell of a woman who sought him out only for comfort. He deserved…he deserved everything. She loved him. She loved him and she was hurting him and those thoughts could and must co-exist. The betrayal she had felt when he dropped to one knee, that was because of her, not him. As much as she knew he would talk around it and never admit it in words she knew that Han wanted to be wanted. Those early arguments they’d had all over Echo base, all of the finger waving and prodding and barbs, all of them were trying to provoke her into admitting she wanted him there. Han wanted to be wanted and she had left him kneeling on the floor.

There was no stopping the tears after that.

She focused on her breathing, trying to breathe deeply while her chest hitched and her tears fell. Once she had started it seemed impossible to stop. But no, she held her breath and released. This too, she would overcome. She wiped her eyes roughly with the back of her sleeve and focused on the window. Another leaf fell and she tracked it, her control steadily returning. 

This wasn’t the end. She was here for a reason, she must be. She would not be alive, so far in her own past if not for a reason. She looked around to where she could hear Kenobi in one of the rooms. Her eyes caught on the hydrospanner still laying on the desk. 

She was here for a reason, whatever it was she could not fail. Not if it meant being able to go back to Han. 

She didn’t know how long she sat there, only that four more leaves fell from the tree as the sun begun to move from its zenith. Eventually, Kenobi emerged from the room he had been preparing. She felt his scrutiny, but the first time all day, she did not resent it. She saw him take in her eyes, undoubtably too red, and her face, undoubtably too pale. 

“Do you want to learn, Leia?” He asked her eventually. She looked back, unflinching, and when her voice came it was even. 

“Teach me.”


End file.
